Athens
\nA Greek court was due Thursday to deliver its verdict on an illegal wiretapping scandal targeting politicians, journalists, business leaders and senior military officials that shook the conservative government in 2022.
\nDubbed the \u201cGreek Watergate\u201d by local media, it forced the resignation of senior officials in Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis\u2019s administration.
\nFour defendants \u2014 two Israelis including a former soldier and two Greeks \u2014 face up to five years in prison for violating the confidentiality of telephone communications. They deny involvement.
\nThe sentences are expected to be suspended, to the outrage of lawyers for the victims. The defendants could benefit from a 2019 law under which breaches of the confidentiality of communications are classed as a misdemeanour.
\nThe defendants include Tal Dilian, a former Israeli soldier and founder of Intellexa, a company specialising in the supply of spyware, which marketed the Predator software in Greece.
\nHis partner, as well as two former Greek executives of the company, are also on trial.
\nAccording to Greek media reports, Dilian, who remains free pending judgement, is not expected to be in court for the verdict.
\nPoliticians, journalists monitored
\nThe affair broke in early 2022 when a Greek investigative journalist, Thanassis Koukakis, discovered he had been wiretapped by the intelligence services (EYP) and that his phone had also been infected with the Predator spyware.
\nPredator is sophisticated software that makes it possible to infiltrate mobile phones, access messages and photos, and even remotely activate the microphone and camera.
\n\u201cThe government initially played down the affair to cover for the real political culprits,\u201d Koukakis told AFP in an interview a few months ago.
\nAccording to the Greek Authority for Communication Security and Privacy watchdog (ADAE) however, it was used against more than 90 people.
\nIt snowballed into a political scandal in July 2022, when the soon-to-be leader of the socialist Pasok-Kinal party, Nikos Androulakis, revealed that his mobile phone had also been tapped.
\nAt the time, Androulakis was a member of the European Parliament.
\nFacing mounting pressure, Mitsotakis insisted that the government had \u201cnever purchased or used\u201d Predator.
\nThe prosecutor in the case however made it clear he found that difficult to accept in his closing arguments earlier this month.
\n\u201cPredator is not accessible to private individuals; it is only offered for sale to state services,\u201d he told the court.
\nHigh-level resignations
\nThe \u201cGreek Watergate\u201d led to the resignation of one of the prime minister\u2019s closest aides, his nephew Grigoris Dimitriadis.
\nThe head of the EYP intelligence service also stepped down.
\nMitsotakis later weathered a motion of no confidence in parliament.
\nIn July 2024, the Supreme Court cleared the intelligence services and political officials of wrongdoing, angering victims and human rights bodies.
\nParis-based media rights campaigners Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has described this case as \u201ca fresh blow to media freedom\u201d in Greece.
\nOnly two proven victims of Predator were questioned by the Supreme Court, and the prosecutor did not request access to the bank accounts of the company that marketed the software.
\nThe Greek employees who, in December 2021, hurriedly moved the servers out of their office were not questioned either.
\n\u201cOne may wonder whether the case was really investigated or whether everything was done to bury it,\u201d Androulakis\u2019s lawyer, Christos Kaklamanis, told the court.
\nThe socialist leader has filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Athens A Greek court was due Thursday to deliver its verdict on an illegal wiretapping scandal targeting politicians, journalists, business leaders and senior military officials that shook the conservative government in 2022. Dubbed the \u201cGreek Watergate\u201d by local media, it forced the resignation of senior officials in Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis\u2019s administration. Four defendants \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533729,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-533716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n