SAN FRANCISCO/CAIRO • Two United Nations officials were set to report yesterday that there is enough evidence suggesting Saudi Arabia had hacked Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos' phone, and both the kingdom and the United States should investigate, a person familiar with the matter said.
The two have planned a public statement asserting that they found credible a forensic report commissioned by Mr Bezos' security team which concluded that his phone probably was hacked with a tainted video sent from a WhatsApp account belonging to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Meanwhile, the Saudi embassy in Washington has dismissed suggestions that the kingdom hacked the phone of Mr Bezos, who also owns Washington Post.
The 2018 intrusion led to the release of intimate images of Mr Bezos, whose Post newspaper employed as a contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi - a Saudi journalist murdered later that same year at Riyadh's consulate in Istanbul.
"Recent media reports that suggest the kingdom is behind a hacking of Mr Jeff Bezos' phone are absurd," the Saudi Arabian embassy said on its Twitter account. "We call for an investigation on these claims so that we can have all the facts out."
The forensic report by FTI Consulting said massive amounts of data began leaving Mr Bezos' phone about a month after the video was shared in mid-2018, the person familiar with the matter said, declining to be identified. Outside experts consulted by the UN said that while the case was not airtight, evidence was strong enough to warrant a fuller probe.
The report is set to worsen relations between the world's richest man and the kingdom.
The Guardian first reported the crown prince's alleged involvement. It said the encrypted message from the number used by the prince is believed to have included a malicious file that infiltrated Mr Bezos' phone and extracted large amounts of data.
The two men were having a seemingly friendly WhatsApp exchange when the unsolicited file was sent, according to sources cited by The Guardian.
Mr Bezos hired Gavin de Becker & Associates to find out how his intimate text messages and photos made their way into the hands of the National Enquirer, which reported on the Amazon chief's extramarital affair, leading to his divorce.
Around March last year, Mr de Becker wrote on The Daily Beast website: "Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos' phone, and gained private information." But he did not specify which part of the Saudi government he was blaming, and gave few details about the probe.
The UN statement will come from Ms Agnes Callamard, special rapporteur for extra-judicial killings, and Mr David Kaye, special rapporteur for free expression. They expect to give a fuller report to the UN in June, the person said.
Amazon declined to comment.
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
