How Cherie Blair blew open sheikh hacking scandal
Cherie and the spy sheikh: How Princess Haya and her peer divorce lawyer Baroness Shackleton fell victim to ‘dark art’ hacking op that tracked their every move and call… until Mrs Blair got explosive tip-off
Cherie Blair was acting as a legal adviser for Israeli tech firm NSO GroupThe firm, which uses military-grade spyware Pegasus, contacted Mrs Blair The company tipped off Mrs Blair that Baroness Shackleton QC had been hackedHer client, Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, had also been hacked by Pegasus
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A late night phone call from Cherie Blair helped blow the lid off the sheikh’s hack attack in Britain – and the victims included a Tory peer.
Shortly after 10pm on August 5 last year, she found a number for Baroness Shackleton and informed her fellow lawyer she had ‘some important information’.
Minutes earlier, Mrs Blair had taken a call from a senior figure at a secretive Israeli tech firm, NSO Group, which makes controversial military-grade spyware known as Pegasus.
New court papers have shown that Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein of Jordan, pictured right, and her lawyer Baroness Fiona Shackleton, left, had their phones hacked
Princess Haya is married to Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, right,
Cherie Blair QC, pictured, received a tip off from her client, Israeli security firm NSO Group that their military-grade software was being used to hack phones belonging to Baroness Shackleton and Princess Haya
The QC wife of Tony Blair has been working for NSO Group as a legal adviser, it emerged in court. In the call from NSO headquarters, she was instructed to tip off British solicitor Baroness Shackleton and her client Princess Haya bint al-Hussein that its spyware may have been ‘misused’ to monitor their mobile phones.
Mrs Blair later told the High Court in a written statement: ‘The NSO senior manager told me that NSO were very concerned about this and asked me to contact Baroness Shackleton urgently so she could notify Princess Haya.’
It was thanks to Mrs Blair’s whistleblowing – along with a Californian cyber detective named Dr William Marczak and a mysterious Gulf state dissident known as ‘Mr X’ whose own phone was targeted by Dubai’s secret service – that Sheikh Mohammed’s dubious UK spying scheme was exposed.
The High Court has now concluded on the balance of probabilities that he orchestrated the illegal hacking of six phones, belonging to Princess Haya, two of her lawyers, her PA and two bodyguards.
Pegasus has the ability to siphon off photos, messages, emails, contacts, passwords and other data from an iPhone – and even to turn it into a clandestine eavesdropping device. NSO Group only sells the powerful spyware to governments, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of which Dubai is a part.
The judge said Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, and prime minister of the UAE, ‘is prepared and able to use the government security services for his own family needs’. His hacking operation took place last July and August, with Pegasus – apparently being remotely operated by Dubai spymasters – stealing some 265 megabytes of data from Princess Haya’s iPhone via the wifi of her Berkshire home. This would be the equivalent to 24 hours of digital voice recordings or 500 photographs, the court heard. Exactly what was stolen is unknown.
But the supposedly untraceable Pegasus system was in fact leaving a faint trail – and this was picked up 5,000 miles away by computer scientist Dr Marczak. He was helped by a UAE political activist known as ‘Mr X’, who gave him his own phone that was being targeted by Pegasus. Examining it gave the digital detective vital clues as to how the spyware operates.
Dr Marczak worked out that Pegasus was targeting London law firm Payne Hicks Beach. He then discovered they were Princess Haya’s lawyers and immediately understood the significance.
On August 5 last year, Dr Marczak tipped off Baroness Shackleton’s firm via a human rights lawyer he already knew, Martyn Day, of London firm Leigh Day.
It was later that same day, although separately, that Mrs Blair’s own tip came in.
She told the court: ‘I was told by the NSO senior manager that it had come to the attention of NSO that their software may have been misused to monitor the mobile phone of Baroness Shackleton and her client, Her Royal Highness Princess Haya.’ For almost two years, the High Court has been in the process of determining the living and schooling arrangements of the sheikh and princess’s two children.
Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the Family Division, has ordered a fresh inquiry.
At an urgent hearing on October 6, last year, Princess Haya’s QC Charles Geekie said the sheikh’s lawyers, Harbottle & Lewis, ‘may be in possession of hacked material, whether they know that or not themselves’. He said news of the hacking had made her ‘feel both hunted and haunted’.
For the sheikh, Lord Pannick QC said: ‘The father has denied these allegations in the clearest possible terms. The father is not prepared to enter into any debate in relation to what security system the UAE may have. He has no knowledge of any such activity taking place.’
But the judge concluded otherwise. He ruled: ‘It is obvious that the father, above any other person in the world, is the probable originator of the hacking.’
He said the sheikh had compounded the abuse by fighting the allegations and showing no ‘sign of concern for the mother, who is caring for their children’.