US whistleblower Edward Snowden has accused the Israel cyber intelligence firm NSO Group Technologies of “selling a digital burglary tool” which he claimed had been used to track Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in Istanbul last month, according to the Jerusalem Post.
He said in this context that that NSO’s software is not “just being used for catching criminals and stopping terrorist attacks […] not just for saving lives, but for making money […] such a level of recklessness […] actually starts costing lives.”
Snowden spoke via video conference from an undisclosed location in Russia at an event organized by Tel-Aviv-based strategic, corporate, tech and financial communications firm OH! Orenstein Hoshen.
Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor, disappeared on October 2 after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where he had arrived to obtain the necessary papers for his upcoming wedding.
After more than two weeks of denials, Saudi Arabia acknowledged that the journalist had been killed in a fight inside the consulate.
The Saudi prosecutor general, for his part, admitted that Khashoggi’s murder had been premeditated, with Riyadh claiming that the killing had nothing to do with the Saudi Royal family.
Turkey, which conducts a separate investigation into the matter, said that Khashoggi was assassinated by a hit squad sent from Saudi Arabia specifically for the task.
Source: Sputnik
