Il Fatto Quotidiano has published an article that explains how the story of Jamal Khashoggi is, in some way, linked to the Italian company "Hacking Team". The Italian company has invented software that manages to spy through computers, tablets and smartphones.
The Washington Post on 12 last October wrote that "in the months leading up to his death, Jamal Khashoggi told his friends that he had received some calls from a major official - such Al Qahtani - who invited him to abandon the exile and return in Saudi Arabia, with the promise of being rehabilitated by the Saudi government, through a prestigious job.
Jamal Khashoggi, as noted, was the number one critic of the current Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salmano (MBS), through his editorials, included in the Washington Post 'Global opinion' section.
Then there is Al Qahtani, also an Arab, very close to the prince of Saudi Arabia who in 2016 bought 20% of the Italian company “Hacking Team” which spies on mobile phones and computers.
2016 is also the year in which the Italian ministry of economic development, Il Fatto states, had granted specific authorization to supply the Hacking Team product to Saudi Arabia. However, Hacking Teamm actually started a collaboration with Saudi agencies as early as 2010, as can be seen in the internal documents published by Wikileaks in 2015 and then disclosed last February by the Italian site of Motherboard.
The software of Italian society, for its capabilities, for many years would have been in the minds of the Saudis and in particular of the most feared character by Khashoggi, Al Qahtani, president of January 2018 of the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, programming and drones.
The fear of the slain Saudi journalist is reported in the Washington Post article, "Khashoggi told his friends that he did not believe those words and did not trust either the offer or the official who proposed it, namely Saud Al Qahtani, adviser to the Arab Prince ".
Al Qahtani is very influential on social media with a Twitter profile with more than 1,3 million followers.
From the Qatar website The New Arab Al Qahtani has been called "the Steve Bannon Saudita". The website ww.alaraby.co.uk has published a picture of the Saudian Steve Bannon which reads: "According to Saudi sources like the famous dissident Mujtahid, al Qahtani is said to have a unit to monitor social media that produces daily reports on dissidents ".
Jamal Khashoggi often wrote against Al Qahtani. In February it was defined by the official through which the prince of Saudi Arabia controls the media.
The Italian company Hacking Team was born in 2003 and was able to create and commercialize, a spy software that can sneak into the phone or in anyone's PC or tablet to catch its secrets, emails, conversations or even to record and film .
The carabinieri and the Italian prosecutors from Rome to Naples to Milan have used, that is, they use this deadly weapon. Il Fatto writes that Aise and Aisi (the Italian intelligence agencies) also used the software. Today they apparently canceled the contract with Hacking Team.
This powerful softaware in the past was also offered to foreign governments, with the authorization of the Ministry of Economic Development. Sometimes, writes Il Fatto, even non-democratic regimes like Egypt or Sudan or Saudi Arabia.