SAUDI WOMEN’S RIGHTS ACTIVIST SUES 3 FORMER U.S. OFFICIALS OVER HACKING FOR UAE

Fri 10 December 2021:

Loujain al-Hathloul, a prominent Saudi women’s rights activist, has filed a lawsuit against three former US intelligence and military officers who admitted in a US court to assisting the UAE in hacking operations.

Hathloul claimed in her lawsuit, filed in a US district court in Oregon in collaboration with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, that the actions of three men – Marc Baier, Ryan Adams, and Daniel Gericke – resulted in her iPhone being hacked and her communication being intercepted by UAE security officials.

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According to the lawsuit, the hacking eventually led to Hathloul’s arrest in the UAE and rendition to Saudi Arabia, where she was detained, imprisoned, and tortured.

In a separate legal action brought by the US Department of Justice, the three defendants admitted to violating US export control and computer fraud laws in their previous roles as senior managers for a UAE company.

According to the lawsuit, DarkMatter, the UAE company for which the three men worked, used Apple’s messages app and other Apple infrastructure to deploy malware on Hathloul’s phone, which “intentionally or recklessly” transmitted malware that used servers located in the United States to carry out an alleged hack of her phone.

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The lawsuit is the first time Hathloul, who was released from a Saudi prison earlier this year but remains imprisoned in the country, has taken legal action against those who she claims were involved in her detention.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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