A case against two Israelis and two Greeks allegedly involved in marketing the Predator spy software is set to be heard by a low-ranking judge in Greece, marking the latest development in a scandal known as “Greece’s Watergate.”
The scandal gained public attention in the summer of 2022, when Nikos Androulakis, leader of the socialist Pasok party and a Member of the European Parliament at the time, was informed by EU Parliament IT experts that he had received a malicious text message from an unknown sender containing the Predator spyware. Predator, marketed by the Athens-based company Intellexa, can access a device’s messages, camera, and microphone. The issue escalated when Androulakis also discovered he had been tracked for “national security reasons” by Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP).
In summer 2019, one month after taking office, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had placed the EYP directly under his own supervision. In the fallout from the 2022 revelations, his government became the center of the crisis. The head of EYP, Panagiotis Kontoleon, resigned, as did the prime minister’s top aide and nephew, Grigoris Dimitriadis, who was the liaison between the EYP and the PM’s office.
Investigations by the Hellenic Data Protection Authority revealed that Predator had been used in attempts to entrap at least 87 people. Of those individuals, 27 were also being simultaneously monitored by the EYP, a list that included serving government ministers and senior military officers. The government has insisted this overlap was a coincidence and maintained that no state agency had ever used Predator, as it was illegal in Greece at that time. A 2022 law has since legalized the use of such surveillance software by state security under strict conditions.
Questions remain unanswered, as the government has not explained why its secret services spied on Lieutenant General Konstantinos Floros, the Chief of National Defence General Staff, or Kostis Hatzidakis, a then-cabinet member who is now the government’s vice-president. After the scandal broke, the government passed a new law on communications confidentiality. The law adds safeguards for law-enforcement but has been criticized for preventing citizens from learning if they were previously under surveillance.
The government also faced criticism for its handling of the investigation, which intensified after authorities raided the Athens offices of Intellexa months after the scandal began but left empty-handed. Christos Rammos, a former senior judge and president of the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE) at the time, was a central figure in uncovering the facts. He told the BBC he faced significant obstacles: “In Greece the political system cannot tolerate independent authorities, the so-called checks and balances on power. The wiretapping affair was a traumatic experience for our democracy. I was subjected to personal attacks. It was an open war.”
The scandal drew international scrutiny, as one of the first known victims, Nikos Androulakis, was an MEP. The European Parliament established a special Committee of Inquiry to investigate the use of Pegasus and equivalent spyware (PEGA). Its Rapporteur, former MEP Sophie in ’t Veld, told the BBC that the Greek government made “every possible attempt to conceal the truth. They have, at every turn, refused cooperation.”
In ’t Veld also commented on the spyware’s broader effects. “The whole spyware thing is not something that you can see in isolation. It’s not taking place in a vacuum. It’s used to silence critical voices. It’s used to stifle scrutiny. But, the damage has been done; it’s had a chilling effect.” She shared a recent conversation to illustrate the climate of fear, saying a friend who was also looking into spyware told her, “‘I cannot be sure that my phone is safe from the Greek government’ – quite literally.”
