Saudi Arabia ordered to pay L3m to London dissident over Pegasus spying
Source: The Guardian
Saudi Arabia ordered to pay £3m to London dissident over Pegasus spying
High court finds kingdom responsible for hacking phones of Ghanem al-Masarir and for physical attack on him
Haroon Siddique and Stephanie Kirchgaessner
Mon 26 Jan 2026 14.48 GMT
Last modified on Mon 26 Jan 2026 14.57 GMT
Saudi Arabia ordered to pay £3m to London dissident over Pegasus spying
High court finds kingdom responsible for hacking phones of Ghanem al-Masarir and for physical attack on him
Haroon Siddique and Stephanie Kirchgaessner
Mon 26 Jan 2026 14.48 GMT
Last modified on Mon 26 Jan 2026 14.57 GMT
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A judge has ordered Saudi Arabia to pay more than £3m in damages to a London-based dissident whose phones were targeted with Pegasus spyware.
In a judgment handed down on Monday, Judge Pushpinder Saini ruled that Ghanem al-Masarir was entitled to compensation for psychiatric harm sustained after discovering that his iPhones had been hacked, as well as a physical attack on him outside Harrods in central London.
Saini said there was “a compelling basis for concluding that the claimant’s iPhones were hacked by Pegasus spyware, which resulted in the exfiltration of data from those mobile phones, and that this conduct was directed or authorised by the KSA [kingdom of Saudi Arabia] or agents acting on its behalf”.
The judge also found, on the balance of probabilities, that Saudi Arabia was responsible for the 2018 physical attack on al-Masarir, a 45-year-old satirist also known as Ghanem al-Dosari, whose YouTube channels have garnered more than 300m views.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/26/saudi-arabia-ordered-pay-london-dissident-pegasus-spying-ghanem-al-masarir