Italian lawmakers seek answers from government on spyware scandal

By Giuseppe Fonte and Alvise Armellini

ROME (Reuters) -Italian lawmakers have formally asked the government whether it spied on journalists, possibly using technology supplied by U.S.-based spyware maker Paragon, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The move marks the latest twist in a months-long saga that has left Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's conservative government facing opposition accusations that it illegally deployed surveillance against its critics - accusations it denies.

The COPASIR parliamentary security committee has written to Cabinet Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano, a key Meloni aide who oversees intelligence matters, to ask whether reporters were targeted, the source said, asking not to be named.

Mantovano did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meloni's government has repeatedly denied being involved in any illegal spying on journalists.

Paragon did not immediately respond on Friday to an emailed request for comment outside office hours.

In January, META said around 90 users of its popular WhatsApp chat service had been targeted by Paragon spyware. Some of them were later shown to have been Italian.

Last month, Reuters reported that Italian prosecutors were looking into allegations of spying on Ciro Pellegrino and Francesco Cancellato from the Fanpage news website, Roberto D'Agostino, the head of political gossip website Dagospia, and Dutch right-wing influencer Eva Vlaardingerbroek.

In a report published in June, COPASIR said Italy's domestic and foreign intelligence agencies had activated contracts with Paragon and used its technology on a limited number of people, with permission from a prosecutor.

These included members of a migrant sea rescue NGO who are critical of Meloni's hardline border policies.

The report found no evidence that Italian spy agencies used Paragon spyware on Cancellato's phone, as he had alleged to Reuters and other media outlets. The document made no mention of the other journalists.

Following a media outcry and criticism from opposition politicians over the affair, both Paragon and Italian authorities said last month that spyware contracts between them had been terminated.

In a statement provided in June to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Paragon said it had offered the Italian government a way to check whether its spyware had been used against Cancellato.

The company said it ended the contract with Italy when this offer was turned down. COPASIR said Italian authorities ended the contract on their own initiative, and disputed Paragon's version of events.

(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte and Alvise Armellini, Editing by Andrew Heavens)