GHANEM
AL-MASARIR

Background and Work

Ghanem Al-Masarir is a Saudi dissident, political commentator, and YouTuber who has documented human rights violations and government corruption in Saudi Arabia from exile in the United Kingdom. His videos, widely viewed among Saudi audiences, analyse abuses of power, arbitrary detention, and suppression of dissent. His work made him a target.

The Targeting

In 2018 researchers at Citizen Lab, the University of Toronto's digital-rights laboratory, discovered that a Saudi operator code-named KINGDOM was deploying NSO Group's Pegasus spyware against Saudi dissidents living abroad. Al-Masarir was among those targeted. He received messages containing links designed to appear benign; clicking them silently infected his iPhone with Pegasus.

Once installed, Pegasus grants near-total access to a device: messages, emails, contacts, location data, microphone, and camera. The spyware operates invisibly. Al-Masarir's phone became an instrument of surveillance in the hands of the government he had fled. Citizen Lab's forensic analysis later confirmed the infection and traced it to the Saudi operator.

Physical Assault and Harm

The surveillance was not confined to the digital realm. Al-Masarir was physically assaulted in London by individuals he identified as Saudi agents. The attacks caused him psychological trauma and physical injury. Fearing for his safety, he reduced his public activities and curtailed his media work, resulting in loss of income. The combined impact—digital infiltration, physical violence, and the chilling of his activism—formed the basis of his legal claim.

Legal Proceedings

Al-Masarir sued the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in UK civil court, claiming damages for psychological harm, injury, and lost earnings resulting from the spyware infection and physical assaults. An initial hearing took place in 2022. The presiding judge heard testimony from Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, who provided forensic evidence and expert analysis. The judge described Marczak's qualifications and expertise as impeccable and concluded that his evidence demonstrated to the requisite standard that Al-Masarir's iPhones had been infected with spyware and that Saudi Arabia, or those for whom it was vicariously liable, were responsible.

In January 2026 the court ruled in Al-Masarir's favour, awarding him £3 million in damages. The award covered injury, associated costs, and lost earnings. The judgment was one of the first successful civil claims in the United Kingdom for transnational repression facilitated by commercial spyware.

International Significance

The ruling established a precedent for victims of state-sponsored digital surveillance to seek redress in UK courts. Ron Deibert, director of Citizen Lab, stated that for years victims of targeted espionage and transnational repression have lacked an avenue for justice, and that the United Kingdom's courts had now provided such an avenue. The judgment has been cited as a model for accountability in cases where authoritarian governments deploy mercenary spyware to track and silence dissidents beyond their borders.