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Experts have demanded an immediate investigation by U.S. and other authorities into allegations that Saudi Arabia's crown prince was involved in a plot to hack the phone of Amazon boss and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos.
The UN special rapporteurs, Agnes Callamard and David Kaye, said on Wednesday they had information pointing to the "possible involvement" of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the alleged 2018 cyberattack, which preceded alleged threats by the National Enquirer to publish intimate photographs of Jeff Bezos.
Callamard, the special rapporteur for extra-judicial killings, and Kaye, special rapporteur for free expression, said in a statement that they believed the hack was carried out "in an effort to influence, if not silence, The Washington Post's reporting on Saudi Arabia" and called for an "immediate investigation by U.S. and other relevant authorities."
The Wall Street Journal said an FBI investigation into the hack was ongoing. FBI declined to comment. Saudi officials dismissed the allegations as absurd.
The rapporteurs based their call for an investigation on a 17-page forensic report drawn up by Washington-based FTI Consulting, which a source familiar with the matter said had been commissioned by Bezos. The report alleges with "medium to high confidence" that the billionaire's iPhone X was hijacked by a malicious video file sent from a WhatsApp account used by the crown prince on May 1, 2018.
The report, a copy of which was first published by Motherboard, said that within hours of receiving the video file there was "an anomalous and extreme change" in the device's behavior, with the level of outgoing data from the phone jumping nearly 300-fold.
FTI Consulting said in an email that its work was confidential and it would not comment further.
The alleged hack deepens the intrigue around how the Enquirer - which had close links with U.S. President Donald Trump at the time of the alleged extortion - obtained messages exchanged between Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, an ex-TV anchor who the tabloid said he was dating.
Last year Bezos' security chief said the Saudi government was the source of the messages. A month before, Bezos had accused the Enquirer's owner of trying to blackmail him with the threat of publishing "intimate photos" he allegedly sent to Sanchez.
All this took place as Trump - who has closely allied the United States with bin Salman - was clashing with Bezos and the Washington Post in public.
"So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor," Trump gloated here on Twitter as news of the clash between Bezos and the Enquirer went public. Trump also took the opportunity to take a shot at the Post: "Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better more responsible hands!"
The Saudi government has denied having anything to do with the National Enquirer's reporting.
(Cover: Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman uses his phone during a meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, January 12, 2020. /Reuters photo)
(REUTERS)
