Jasur Sumerinli

Surveillance

Jasur Sumerinli was selected for surveillance with the Pegasus spyware in 2019. Forbidden Stories was unable to analyze the phone to confirm the infection.

Who is he?

A journalist who reports on military affairs, Jasur Sumerinli was forced to flee Azerbaijan in 2014 because of his critical reporting on defense issues. He requested asylum in Germany where he currently lives.

In 2019, Sumerinli continued to report on military affairs from Germany. In March of that year, the journalist and defense analyst wrote about delays in food provisions for soldiers in the Azerbaijani armed forces and raised the issue of military deaths in non-combatant situations in an interview with Sevinj Osmanqizi, whose personal emails were later leaked to the government.

Sumerinli currently works at the Caspian Defense Studies Institute and runs a Caspian Defense blog.

His work

Response

Azerbaijani authorities did not respond to detailed questions sent by Forbidden Stories and its partners. NSO Group did not answer Forbidden Stories’ questions on specific targets but said it “will continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action based on the results of these investigations.”