German prosecutors have charged four people with the unauthorised sale of espionage software to Turkish security services, alleging just days before a pivotal election that it was used in an attempt to spy on the country’s opposition.
The charges, which were filed at a regional court in Munich, allege that the former employees of a defunct company called FinFisher deliberately broke German export rules, routing sales through a Romanian company to sidestep the permits required to sell surveillance software outside the EU.
The FinSpy software allegedly ended up in the hands of Turkish security services, which prosecutors say targeted activists in 2017, using fake websites supposedly linked to Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the longtime leader of Turkey’s biggest opposition party.
German prosecutors on Monday said FinSpy had been “downloaded and deployed in Turkey on previously provided hardware, followed by training on its use”. The deal between FinFisher and the Turkish government was worth roughly €5mn, according to the prosecutors.
The charges were filed just days before the second round of Turkey’s presidential elections, in which Kılıçdaroğlu will face off against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Kılıçdaroğlu’s six-party opposition alliance, which performed unexpectedly poorly in the first election round on May 14, has consistently said it has been competing on an unfair playing field, in part because Erdoğan has been able to deploy state resources during the campaign.
The alleged use of the spy software to Turkey’s security services in 2017 came a year after a coup attempt against Erdoğan. The unsuccessful putsch sparked a crackdown in the military, within the government and in academia.
Turkey’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the alleged sale and use of the FinSpy software. The charged individuals, whose names were not disclosed, could not be reached for comment.
German prosecutors began investigating the four suspects in 2019, when several human rights organisations claimed that the software was being used to target the opposition in Turkey.
The spyware was placed on to a fake website that purported to be associated with Kılıçdaroğlu’s “March for Justice”, which was protesting against the post-coup purge launched by Erdoğan’s government, according to the initial complaint filed by the rights groups to prosecutors.
FinFisher formally filed for insolvency in 2021, after nearly a decade of marketing FinSpy, which can access the target’s messages, phone calls, camera and microphone, and has been linked to secret services around the world.
The company was hacked in 2014 and WikiLeaks later released copies of the software, describing it as “weaponised German surveillance malware”.
Prosecutors said that 15 properties, around Munich and in Romania, were raided as part of the investigation.
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