In 2019, Amnesty International uncovered that the phones of two Moroccan human rights defenders, Maati Monjib and Abdessadak El Bouchattaoui, had been targeted with Pegasus starting from at least 2017. The NGO found in 2020 that the phone of Moroccan journalist Omar Radi was also infected with Pegasus.
In July 2021, the Pegasus Project revealed that what is believed to be a Moroccan operator has selected more than 10,000 numbers in several countries for potential surveillance with Pegasus. Consortium members also reported that several Moroccan journalists critical to the government were selected as potential Pegasus targets. Among them were Taoufik Bouachrine and Souleimane Raissouni, two Moroccan newspaper editors who are currently in jail on charges such as sexual assault and rape. These charges, according to human rights organizations, were brought against them in an effort to silence independent journalism in Morocco. The Pegasus investigation also identified several French individuals, including activist Claude Mangin and journalists Lenaïg Bredoux and Edwy Plenel, whose phones were successfully infected with Pegasus, likely by a Moroccan operator, and several Moroccan individuals listed as potential targets, including King Mohammed VI, other members of the Moroccan royal family, their entourage and then-prime minister of Morocco Saad-Eddine El-Othmani.
Morocco “categorically” rejected the consortium’s information on its use of Pegasus. Immediately after the revelations, the state of Morocco sued Amnesty International, Forbidden Stories and several French and German media outlets for defamation. In March 2022, a French court ruled that the defamation lawsuits were inadmissible (an appeal court confirmed in April 2023 that the lawsuit against the French outlets and NGOs was inadmissible and Morocco announced that it would appeal the decision).
According to El Español, in May 2022, the European Parliament allegedly decided to include Morocco in its newly-launched investigation into the Pegasus scandal.
In June 2023, the European Parliament adopted the PEGA committee’s recommendations with a vast majority. MEPs called for full investigations and safeguards to prevent spyware abuse and saw “strong indications” that the government of Morocco had spied on EU citizens, including heads of state.