By Sarantis Michalopoulos
A new long list of journalists and politicians, including a former prime minister, whose phones were reportedly bugged with the Predator illegal spyware published by Documento journal on Sunday has caused a shock in Greece and put the country’s democratic normality to the test.
“The least Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis could do is to resign,” leftist lawmaker and former minister Dimitris Tzanakopoulos told EURACTIV.
The so-called “Greek Watergate” scandal has shaken Greek politics in the last months as it was revealed that opposition politicians and journalists were wiretapped by the state.
But the new list of Predator victims published by journalist Kostas Vaxevanis, owner of Documento newspaper, fuels the fire as it includes ministers and their wives from the current New Democracy government (EPP) and more prominent journalists and business people.
Former conservative prime minister Antonis Samaras (New Democracy, EPP) was also on the list, as well as current Foreign Affairs Minister Nikos Dendias.
According to the report, all politicians on the list were people not trusted by Mitsotakis or were eyeing the party’s leadership.
Documento was the only journal excluded from state funding by the Mitsotakis government during the pandemic in the controversial “Stay Home” campaign.
Journalist Vaxevanis said he has evidence that he will submit on Monday to the country’s general prosecutor, who meanwhile launched a probe into the wiretap scandal.
Mitsotakis has so far remained silent over the new evidence. Greek government spokesperson Giannis Oikonomou issued a statement saying the new list needed to be examined by the justice authorities but at the same time launched a personal attack against Vaxevanis, calling him a “national defamer”.
Oikonomou insisted that illegal spyware does exist in Greece, but no public authority has used them. On the other hand, Documento’s report suggests that Predator was used in collaboration with the technology employed by Greece’s state intelligence agency.
Greece’s supreme court has ordered a probe into a bombshell report that more than 30 politicians, journalists and businessmen were targeted by state surveillance, a justice source said Sunday (6 November).
Mitsotakis cornered
Critics suggest Mitsotakis will not survive the situation, especially if Europol steps in or if EU authorities raise the rule law issue as it did with Hungary and the Recovery Fund.
The government has admitted that it carried out “legal” surveillance activities by the secret services against journalists and politicians without using Predator but has so far refused to unveil the reasons why by invoking the “national security” argument.
Mitsotakis said he was unaware of such activities despite enacting a law that places him in direct supervision of intelligence. However, his chief of staff and nephew, Grigoris Dimitriadis, and the head of secret services resigned following the revelation of the spyware activities.
“From the sequence of events, the coincidences of dates and the persons under surveillance, it emerges that the mastermind behind this dark case is the prime minister himself. This is a major issue for the democratic regime as this actually erodes the very foundations of democracy,” Tzanakopoulos told EURACTIV.
The European Parliament’s PEGA Committee was in Athens last week to examine the scandal, and the EU lawmakers said they left with more questions than answers.
“Paranoid Greek prime minister accused of putting under surveillance people he suspected to be against him, including his own entourage. This explains why Mitsotakis didn’t appear before the national nor the European parliamentary inquiry committee,” Belgian MEP Saskia Bricmont tweeted yesterday.
The main opposition Syriza has asked the government to immediately ban spyware, force the companies who own Predator to unveil who their customers are in Greece and shed light on the scandal before the general elections due in 2023.
Syriza also wants the replacement of the current secret services chief, who refuses to unveil any information regarding the scandal under the guise of “national security”.
“This is the minimum requirements to have elections as a democratic country”, a Syriza source told EURACTIV.
Asked if Syriza will ask for a no-confidence vote against the prime minister, several party sources said the motion of censure would be made when it can overthrow Mitsotakis.
Brussels tolerates Mitsotakis for now
Renew Europe MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld tweeted that while Europol and the European Commission are frantically trying to escape having to deal with the spyware scandal, the FBI is in Greece to investigate.
For his part, Syriza lawmaker Stelios Kouloglou told EURACTIV the Commission and the European People’s Party “tolerate Mitsotakis’ illegalities so far”.
“Mitsotakis largely controls the media, but the scandal is of such scope that it makes it very difficult for Mitsotakis to survive it.
“He is trying to buy time and will try to hold on to power by all means because wiretapping is illegal. If he leaves the government and loses control of the Judiciary, he will not be able to avoid the criminal consequences for the parastate he set up”, Kouloglou concluded. /EURACTIV.com
