Amid spyware scandal, Greek opposition lawmaker claims to be victim of gov't wiretapping

By Magda Panoutsopoulou

ATHENS (AA) - A Greek opposition lawmaker and former infrastructure minister submitted a complaint on Friday to a prosecutor with the country's top court, claiming that an attempt had been made last year to install spyware on his cell phone.

Christos Spirtzis, of the SYRIZA party, said two messages had been sent to him in mid-November after he filled out a series of questions relating to the surveillance work of the National Intelligence Service (EYP) in Greece.

Spirtzis said similar messages had been received by the leader of the PASOK/KINAL opposition party, Nikos Androulakis, who is at the center a major surveillance scandal that has rocked Greek politics after intelligence officials admitted to wiretapping him with Predator spyware.

Outside the court, Spirtzis told journalists that the evidence shows "that some people desperately wanted to know which journalists and citizens I was speaking to and obviously also my conversations with the president of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, about the EYP and the revelations that had been made in those days."

In a statement, the left-wing lawmaker said he issued a notice of complaint to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Nov. 13, 2021 about allegations of government spying made on the front page of the daily Efsyn, claiming that the EYP had ordered the surveillance of Greek citizens, including journalists, to gather information on their ideological background, as well as of a 12-year-old refugee child whose sketch was published in the French newspaper Le Monde.

"On the same day, I received a message on my cell phone with the Predator software that had a link to efsyn.news instead of efsyn.gr" which is the outlet's actual website, Spirtzis added.

Meanwhile, government spokesperson Yiannis Economou criticized Sprintzis' complaint on Friday, saying: "Βy diabolical coincidence, on the day the prime minister is going to Thessaloniki for the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF), Mr. Spirtzis discovered an attempt to tap his cell phone with malware and decided to file a complaint about it with a prosecutor."

"The government has launched all the necessary institutional procedures for the investigation of these issues in due course and has clarified that the Greek state has purchased no such software, and that no state agency uses or has used it," Economou pointed out, accusing SYRIZA of "operating on the basis of communications and cheap spectacle."

A hearing on the investigation into the wiretapping of Androulakis is scheduled to begin on Sept. 13.

- Surveillance scandal

In an Aug. 8 address to the nation, Prime Minister Mitsotakis acknowledged that Androulakis was wiretapped by the intel agency but denied knowledge of the operation.

"It was formally OK but politically unacceptable," he said.

The announcement followed the resignation of EYP head Panagiotis Kontoleon and the Prime Minister's Secretary General Grigoris Dimitriadis on Aug. 5.

The scandal unfolded on Aug. 4 when Kontoleon told a parliamentary committee that his agency had been spying on financial journalist Thanasis Koukakis.

A parliamentary probe was launched after Androulakis complained to top prosecutors about an attempt to hack his mobile phone with Predator.

Opposition parties blame Mitsotakis for the scandal and have called for his government to hold snap elections, something he rejects.

The European Commission and European Parliament are closely monitoring developments related to the scandal.

On Thursday, Greek journalists who were allegedly monitored by the EYP reiterated that the government bears full responsibility for their surveillance, which they said was illegal.

Both Stavros Malihoudis and Thanasis Koukakis claim to be victims of illegal spyware.