British court dismisses Bahrain’s bid to block activists’ spyware lawsuit

Britain’s Supreme Court has dismissed a bid by Bahrain to claim state immunity to close down a spyware lawsuit filed by two dissidents.

The ruling, handed down on Monday by a narrow 3-2 majority, sets a significant precedent, confirming that foreign states can be sued in UK courts over the remote surveillance of individuals in Britain, even when the hacking itself was directed from abroad.

Saeed Shehabi, a journalist and founder of a Bahraini political party that opposes the Khalifa royal family’s rule, and Moosa Mohammed, a Bahraini refugee, accused the Bahraini government of infecting their computers in 2011 with spyware known as FinSpy, capable of logging keystrokes, tracking locations and monitoring their activities remotely.

Both men, who live in the UK, sued in London’s High Court in 2020, seeking damages for “psychiatric harm”.

Bahrain denied the hacking and argued the alleged acts took place outside UK jurisdiction, entitling it to immunity.

The High Court of Justice in London rejected that argument in 2023 in a decision upheld by the Court of Appeal the following year, prompting Bahrain’s final appeal to the Supreme Court.

In Monday’s ruling, the court found that the alleged surveillance counted as an act carried out in the UK, claiming the claimants and their computers were located in Britain when the spyware allegedly took effect, opening the way for the case to proceed to trial.

The judgement is part of a growing body of litigation testing whether states and surveillance firms can be held liable in Western courts for spyware deployed against critics abroad after similar cases, including WhatsApp’s ongoing lawsuit in the United States against the NSO Group over Pegasus spyware.

Rights groups have long accused Bahrain of surveilling dissidents and journalists.