Spain security firm probed for spying on Ecuador's ex-president

MADRID: A Spanish court is investigating whether Ecuador's ex-president Rafael Correa was spied on by the same Spanish security firm that targeted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, judicial sources told AFP on Friday.

The judge at Madrid's National Court who is overseeing the Assange espionage case, last month opened an investigation into a complaint filed by Correa against Undercover Global and its owner David Morales, according to court documents seen by AFP.

In it, Correa accuses the firm, which provided him with security services until 2019, of "monitoring and taking photos" of his meetings with Assange's Spanish lawyer Baltasar Garzon and of preparing reports in English on other meetings he held in Belgium.

The ex-president, who lives in exile in Belgium and was sentenced in absentia in April to eight years in jail for corruption by an Ecuadoran court, also accused Undercover Global of getting hold of his daughters' mobile phones, "accessing their chats, conversations and images" and taking "intimate photos" of one of them.

For judge Jose de la Mata, such acts "could constitute privacy offences" and for that reason, he "opened an investigation into David Morales Guillen and Undercover Global".

In the document, dated June 22, the judge also asked that Correa, his wife and his daughters give testimony by video conference.

National Court investigators have been probing Undercover Global since last year when Assange accused the company of spying on him on behalf of the CIA while he was inside the Ecuadoran embassy in London.

At the time, Undercover Global was responsible for security at the embassy where Assange took refuge between 2012 to 2019.

Assange has accused the firm of gathering information on him through video cameras and hidden microphones, copying identity documents and monitoring visitors' mobile phones, and then passing on the information to the US intelligence services.

The 49-year-old, who is currently serving time at a high-security prison in Britain, testified by videoconference before the National Court in December, and next week, the court has called another seven witnesses, including Garzon.

The lawsuit is key to Assange's efforts to fight an extradition request by the US Justice Department which him put on trial for leaking hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents in 2010.

He risks 175 years in prison if convicted.

His extradition hearing will take place in London on September 7.