TIRANA, August 8 – Greece has become embroiled in a wiretapping scandal that led to the resignation of its intelligence chief. The resignation follows revelations the state intelligence service EYP, which reports to the office of Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, had allegedly tapped Mitsotakis’ political opponent.
The prime minister had himself over the weekend described the wiretap as a “huge and unforgivable mistake”.
In the meantime Mitsotakis told the nation on Monday he had been in the dark over the phone tapping of socialist party leader Nikos Androulakis by the country’s intelligence service in 2021.
Mitsotakis, who faces elections next year, made the remarks in a televised address to the nation three days after a wiretapping scandal led to the resignations of the head of the National Intelligence Service, Panagiotis Kontoleon, and the general secretary of the prime minister’s office, Grigoris Dimitriadis.
“What happened might have been in accordance with the letter of the law, but it was wrong,” Mitsotakis said. “I didn’t know about it and obviously, I would never have allowed it.” The National Intelligence Service, known by its acronym EYP, answers directly to the prime minister’s office, a change Mitsotakis brought about himself after winning 2019 elections.
He said EYP had underestimated the political dimension of the phone tapping. “It was formally adequate but politically unacceptable.”
Mitsotakis said the mobile phones of Androulakis had been placed under “legal surveillance” from Sept. 2021 for three months. The wiretaps had been halted “automatically” a few days after Androulakis won the party leadership race, he said, but did not elaborate on why the opposition politician was targeted.
“Even though everything happened legally, the National Intelligence Service underestimated the political dimension of the particular action,” Mitsotakis said. “It was formally adequate, but politically not acceptable. It should not have happened, causing rifts in citizens’ trust of the national security services.”
The prime minister said that since the handling of the issue was inappropriate, the head of EYP “was removed immediately” and his own office’s general secretary “assumed the objective political responsibility” by resigning.
It also comes as an embarrassment for Mitsotakis, who had earlier in July at the European Parliament described his centre-right government in glowing terms.
But the revelations are also likely to spell further trouble for Mitsotakis amid calls for an investigation.
His own top aide and nephew Grigoris Dimitriadis had also resigned and for reasons that were not made clear.
“Mitsotakis ought to provide explanations to the Greek people over his own ‘Watergate.’ It’s an issue related to democracy,” said Alexis Tsipras, who leads the left-wing Syriza opposition.
A European Parliament committee looking into illegal phone surveillance is said to have confirmed in late July to Androulakis, who is also an MEP, that there had been an attempt to bug his phone with Predator spyware.
Androulakis then last week filed a complaint with top Greek court prosecutors over the affair.
Citizen Lab, a Canada-based research outlet, says Predator spyware was developed by a North Macedonian start-up called Cytrox.
They also say Predator customers are likely based in Armenia, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Madagascar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Serbia.
Similar findings were made by Google’s Threat Analysis Group, which in May said the software is used by “government-backed actors” in nations including Egypt, Armenia, Greece, Madagascar, Côte d’Ivoire, Serbia, Spain and Indonesia. /Compiled from wires by Argumentum.al
