MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd July, 2023) Technical experts retrieved WhatsApp messages from former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's old cellphone after he forgot the passcode for the app, British media reported Friday.
Johnson is under investigation over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and illegal parties he attended despite lockdowns. A new public inquiry launched in May requested chat logs from the device he stopped using in 2021, but it ran into technical and legal trouble after Johnson admitted he could not unlock it and the Cabinet Office filed a court challenge � but ultimately lost.
Johnson's spokesman was quoted by Sky news as saying Friday that technical experts had "successfully recovered all relevant messages from the device" and that they would be handed over, unredacted, to the COVID inquiry.
A security check of these messages is now required by the government, the spokesman added, meaning "the timing of any further progress on delivery to the inquiry is therefore under the Cabinet Office's control." The deadline for the Cabinet Office to give the messages to the inquiry expired last week.
