EU parliamentary assistant admits hacking MEP Luke 'Ming' Flanagan's Twitter account
MEP Luke 'Ming' Flanagan said his account had been accessed twice from an IP address in Belgium on September 28, 2020, when he was in Ireland due to covid restrictions.
A former parliamentary assistant has admitted in a Belgian court to hacking the Twitter, now X, account of MEP Luke 'Ming' Flanagan.
Diarmuid Hayes, a 34-year-old filmmaker from Ireland, appeared before a court in Belgium, accused of posting a tweet from Mr Flanagan's account shortly before 3am on September 28, 2020, which referred to former Green Party politician Saoirse McHugh "skinny dipping".
The tweet was deleted shortly thereafter, but several different screengrabs of it were shared widely on social media.
Mr Flanagan denied he had been the one who posted the tweet, and he reported the matter to the European Directorate-General for Security and Safety who carried out an investigation. The case was then referred to Belgian police.
In statement in October 2020, the Midlands-North-West MEP said his account had been accessed without his knowledge via a third-party app, and with an old password, the previous month.
He said his account had been accessed twice from an IP address in Belgium on September 28, 2020.
At the time the tweet was posted and deleted, Mr Flanagan was in Ireland due to covid restrictions.
In a statement on February 16, 2022, Mr Flanagan said a preliminary court hearing in the case had taken place the day before at the Chambre du Conseil in Brussels.
He said the court had determined the file surrounding the hacking of his account contained "sufficient elements for a criminal case" against the suspected hacker and for the case "to be sent to a criminal court".
The first hearing into the case took place last September. It was then postponed until Wednesday, February 28, where the full case was heard at the Palais de Justice in the Belgian capital.
Mr Hayes admitted he had been the one who sent the tweet about Ms McHugh. He described the tweet as an “impulsive joke”. He said he quickly regretted sending it, and deleted it a short time later.
Mr Hayes, who had worked as Mr Flanagan's parliamentary assistant in 2018 and 2019, also said he had been upset with the MEP over his employment contract not being renewed in 2019.
"I'm relieved that we're finally coming to the end of this process," Mr Flanagan told RTÉ after the conclusion of the hearing on Wednesday.
"It's been torture for the last three-and-a-half years. The court case seems to have gone very well, they took on board all our arguments and my legal team were excellent.
"The good news for me is it's now quite clear who did this and my name has been cleared and I can get on with what is a far more important job," he said.
A sentencing hearing in the case is scheduled to be held next month.
