Salah Hamouri, a Palestinian lawyer detained in Israel, filed a lawsuit in France on Tuesday against the surveillance firm NSO Group for “illegally infiltrating” his mobile phone with the malware Pegasus.

Hamouri, who also has French citizenship, is serving a four-month administrative detention sentence imposed by an Israeli military court in March on the grounds that he poses a “danger to security.”

According to a November report by human rights groups, he is one of numerous Palestinian activists whose phones were hacked using the Pegasus virus developed by the Israeli corporation NSO.

The organisations had tested the phones of members of six Palestinian non-governmental organisations that Israel has designated as terrorist organisations, including Addameer, a prisoner advocacy group where Hamouri works.

Six Palestinian activists working for the banned organisations were infected with Pegasus, according to the groups.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Human Rights League (LDH), and Hamouri filed a complaint with the Paris prosecutor’s office on Tuesday.

In a statement delivered to the AFP office in Jerusalem, it accused NSO of “illegally infiltrating the telephone of rights advocate Salah Hamouri.”

“Obviously, this is an operation that is part of a mostly political context considering the abuse Hamouri has been subjected to for years and the attacks on human rights advocates in Israel,” FIDH honorary president attorney Patrick Baudouin told AFP.

In the hopes of prompting a judicial inquiry, the rights groups have filed a complaint with the prosecutor of the Paris judicial court, citing offences such as invasion of privacy and communication.

According to Baudouin, Hamouri has French nationality and his phone was reportedly infected with Pegasus prior to his trip to France from April to May 2021, making French courts “capable” to hear the case.

Since a consortium of news sites reported in July last year that its Pegasus software had been used to spy on the phones of journalists, lawmakers, activists, and business leaders in a number of nations, NSO Group has been under increasing scrutiny.

According to Israel, Hamouri is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which it and the European Union see as a “terrorist” organisation.

[embedpost slug=”/italy-expels-30-russian-diplomats/”]