‘Yes, India Bought Pegasus’: Israeli Reporter Who Helped Break NYT Story Speaks to The Wire

The targeting of journalists, politicians and human rights defenders was a violation of the End Use Agreement that India signed with the Israeli Ministry of Defence, which stipulated that Pegasus could only be used against terrorists and organised crime.

Indian leadership showed ‘specific interest’ in Pegasus, paid millions in 2017 for a ‘multi-year contract’ that allows Indian intelligence agencies to target up to 50 phones simultaneously with spyware attacks, Ronen Bergman tells The Wire‘s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan.

The targeting of journalists, politicians and human rights defenders was a violation of the End Use Agreement that India signed with the Israeli Ministry of Defence, which stipulated that Pegasus could only be used against terrorists and organised crime.

Read the NYT report here. Read the transcript of this interview here.

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Author: Siddharth Varadarajan

Siddharth Varadarajan is a Founding Editor of The Wire. He was earlier the Editor of The Hindu and is a recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award and the Ramnath Goenka Award for Journalist of the Year. He taught Economics at New York University and Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, besides working at the Times of India.