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A UK-based YouTube critic of the Saudi royal family has been awarded more than £3 million after his phone was hacked and he was physically assaulted outside Harrods department store in London.
The satirist and activist Ghanem Al-Masarir suffered an eye injury when he was followed and attacked in Knightsbridge in August 2018 by two men who accused him of being a “slave of Qatar”.
Mr. Al-Masarir, whose YouTube videos have been viewed nearly 350 million times, subsequently filed a lawsuit accusing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or its agents of being responsible for the attack.
He claimed the kingdom could not invoke “state immunity” to avoid responsibility for the attack or for his phone being “bugged” by secretly installing malicious spyware.
Following a High Court hearing last week, Judge Saini granted summary judgment in Masalil’s favor on Monday after Saudi Arabia failed to defend the claim.
In delivering his judgment, the judge said the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) had no realistic prospects of defending the case and ordered Mr Al-Masarir to be paid more than £3 million in compensation.
“Saudi Arabia has a clear interest and motive in suppressing the claimants’ public criticism of the Saudi government,” he said in his ruling.
The High Court heard that Mr Al-Masarir, 45, was born in Saudi Arabia but moved to the UK in 2003 before being granted asylum in 2018.
A satirist, critic and human rights activist, he has gained a large online following with videos that satirize the Saudi royal family and expose corruption in the country, with nearly 350 million views on YouTube.
Mr Al-Masarir said in his claim that he had been the subject of harassment and intrusive behavior in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including using infected links to hack into his phone using malicious spyware known as “Pegasus.”
“In his case, as a result of the secret deployment of the spyware on two of his mobile phones, the Saudis or their agents had continuous access to all data communicated through and stored on the mobile phones,” the judge said.
“He said they were also able to track his location, intercept and record his calls, record him using the phone’s microphone and use the phone’s camera.
“The claimant states that this intrusive covert surveillance by Saudi Arabia or its agents touched on every aspect of his private life.
“The claimant’s evidence was that the discovery that he had been targeted by Saudi Arabia had had catastrophic personal consequences for him.
“These included severe depression resulting from the discovery, to the point where his once thriving and lucrative career with online YouTube content effectively ended, and he was unable to work or perform many basic daily activities at all, and rarely left the house.”
But Massaril said his ordeal occurred in 2018, when he was followed after a cafe gathering with friends and then attacked on British soil near Harrods department store.
In a witness statement, he said one of the men began yelling at him, accusing him of talking about the Saud family.
“One of the men hit me in the face and continued to physically attack me,” he said.
“I tried to get away from the men. Both men followed me. The one who didn’t hit me was wearing a gray suit and had headphones or a cord attached to his headset.
“Passers-by intervened and tried to restrain the second man from attacking me.
“During the attack, the men called me a ‘slave of Qatar’ and said they wanted to teach me a lesson.
“Had someone not restrained these men, I know my injuries would have been much more serious. I remember those punches being very vicious and intentional.”
The case came before the court last week, with Mr Al-Masarir applying for summary judgment on the grounds that the Saudi government had not submitted a defence, so it had no real hope of overturning his claims.
“In my judgment, there is compelling evidence to conclude that the plaintiffs’ iPhones were hacked with the Pegasus spyware, resulting in the disclosure of data from those phones, and that such conduct was directed or authorized by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or its agents acting on its behalf,” Judge Saini said in delivering his judgment.
“As the Kingdom has not advanced any defense case against these facts and conclusions, and has not provided any evidence in response to this application, I have concluded that the Kingdom has no real prospect of defending the hacking charges.
“In my judgment, secretly obtaining this information, tracking his location, intercepting his phone calls and using mobile phone microphones and cameras to monitor the claimant constituted an extremely serious invasion of his privacy.
“It effectively turned those smartphones into ‘eavesdropping’ devices, covertly transmitting vast amounts of data and information about every aspect of his life to hostile nations.”
“No justification has been provided for this serious violation and cannot exist. The claimant’s activities as an online activist in support of human rights in Saudi Arabia and against the Saudi government represent an appropriate exercise of his right to freedom of expression. They cannot possibly defend hacking and surveillance.
“In my judgment, the alleged surveillance conduct by Saudi Arabia’s National Security Agency, which I find it had no reasonable grounds to object to, constituted conduct that amounted to harassment of the plaintiff and that it knew or should have known amounted to harassment of the plaintiff.
“The obvious inference is that the Saudi Security Service used Pegasus to conduct multiple surveillance operations over a long period of time.”
He also said it was “unlikely for the Kingdom to successfully defend itself against the allegation that it was responsible for the physical assault of the claimant”.
“Saudi Arabia has a clear interest and incentive to prevent the claimants from public criticism of the Saudi government,” he said.
“The attack was unprovoked: contrary to what the attackers said, the claimants were not discussing the Saudi royal family or government.
“The allegation therefore appears to be a pretext for a premeditated attack on him. I have already mentioned that one of the attackers was wearing headphones, which also shows the extent to which this operation was planned.”
He continued: “In my judgment there is no reason – and certainly no compelling reason – why this claim should proceed to trial.
“Saudi Arabia has failed to provide a defense or respond to this application and has breached a number of further orders. It appears unlikely that it will become involved in the claim.
“Going to trial will result in a completely unnecessary use of court time and resources and unnecessarily incur substantial further costs.
“Proceedings to summary judgment at this stage are the only way to comply with the overarching objective, as the trial is simply a rehearsal of all the evidence before me without being challenged by the Saudis.”
Following summary judgment, the judge awarded Mr Al-Masarir total damages of £3,025,662, including over £2.5 million in lost YouTube income.