Griselda Triana

Griselda Triana, the widow of slain Mexican journalist Javier Valdez, was targeted by government-owned spyware less than two weeks after the prominent reporter was killed, according to Citizen Lab, a Toronto-based internet watchdog group.

The group said on Wednesday that Triana was sent bait messages 10 days after her husband, who covered drug trafficking, was killed in May 2017 on the streets of Culiacan, Sinaloa’s capital.

Valdez’s laptop and mobile phone were removed from the crime scene and are still missing from the investigations, according to official reports.

Triana’s case comes after previous investigations by Citizen Lab revealed that journalists covering corruption, human rights lawyers leading high-profile cases involving the government, anti-corruption activists, opposition politicians and others have been targeted in recent years with carefully tailored bait SMS messages containing links to install Pegasus – the spyware – on their phones without any legal grounds for these actions.

“I felt desecrated,” Triana told Al Jazeera.

(AL JAZEERA)