Jamal Khashoggi's wife to sue Israeli NSO Group, Saudi Arabia, UAE for alleged surveillance

The wife of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has said that she is planning to sue the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, alleging that she was targeted with its notorious Pegasus spyware.

Hanan Elatr also intends to sue Saudi Arabia and the UAE for their alleged involvement in installing it on her mobile phone, The Guardian reported on Thursday.

A joint investigation by the British daily and its partners at the Pegasus Project revealed evidence last year that an NSO client targeted Elatr between November 2017 and April 2018, months before her husband was dismembered by a hit squad at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

"It is important to make everyone involved in this horrible crime accountable. My husband was a peaceful man. I believe in American justice," Elatr was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

The widow - who reportedly wedded Khashoggi months before his death – wants to retrieve two mobile phones, an iPad and a laptop owned by him that are believed to be held by Turkish authorities, in the hopes they will help with her case.

NSO Group have rejected claims of involvement in Khashoggi's and Elatr's case and say their software is only sold to government agencies to target criminals and terrorists.

"NSO has repeatedly stated that our technology was not associated in any way with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi or any of his family members, including Hanan Elatr," an NSO Group spokesman was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also previously dismissed allegations they used Israeli-supplied Pegasus malware to spy on journalists and human rights activists.

However, an Emirati agency was also found to have placed Pegasus on Elatr's phone in April 2018 while she was in UAE custody, the Washington Post revealed last year. Installation of the spyware appeared to have been successful, but this could not be confirmed by the American outlet.

Pegasus was at the centre of a scandal last year after a list was made public of about 50,000 potential surveillance targets worldwide, including journalists, politicians, lawyers and dissidents.

The spyware gives hackers access to a phone’s entire contents, including its camera and microphone.