Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai addressed the police affair and NSO's spyware today (Thursday).
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In a statement he issued, he said: "In recent days, reports have been published in the newspaper 'Calcalist' about investigative actions that were allegedly carried out not in accordance with procedures. These actions occurred, according to the publications, over an extended period of time.
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""The police under my leadership are attentive to any substantive criticism and have begun a rigorous internal investigation." However, "the investigation did not reveal any findings indicating an alleged deviation from the provisions of the law.".
The Commissioner added: "I called on the Calcalist newspaper near the first publication on the matter, and I am calling on the Calcalist newspaper again now, to provide us with concrete details that will allow us to examine the alleged events. I have once again instructed all relevant parties to continue to deepen the investigations, in close cooperation with the Attorney General, to ensure that there was no deviation from the procedures, including during the period when I had not yet served as Commissioner.".
He said, "If and to the extent that it becomes clear that there were isolated cases in which there was a deviation from the rules, the police under my leadership will work to improve and correct it, with full transparency, and in cooperation with all relevant parties. We will not accept any deviation from the provisions of the law, to the extent that it is found that there was one.".
The day before yesterday, an investigation was published in Calcalist, which revealed that the police are using NSO's Pegasus spyware to track criminal suspects.
According to the investigation, former Commissioner Yohanan Danino purchased the system and the Commissioner who followed him, Roni Alsheich, made it operational. Since then, it has been used in criminal investigations - without a court order - when the police requested confidentiality certificates for its products, so that defendants did not know that the system was being used against them.
The investigation revealed that the order to carry out the surveillance was given by high-ranking police officers. The officers who carried out the directive were officers from the police's cyber division.
