Four convicted over spyware scandal that shook Greece

52 minutes agoKostas KoukoumakasIn AthensGetty ImagesThe case was heard in a low-ranking court in Athens that hears misdemeanours (file pic)Four people have been found guilty and given jail terms by a Greek court after a wiretapping scandal shook the country in 2022.In what became known as "Greece's Watergate", surveillance software called Predator was used to target 87 people - among them government ministers, senior military officials and journalists.The four who had marketed the software were found guilty by an Athens court of misdemeanours of violating the confidentiality of telephone communications and illegally accessing personal data and conversations.The court sentenced the four defendants to lengthy jail sentences, suspended pending appeal. Although they each face 126 years, only eight would be typically served which is the upper limit for misdemeanours.One in three of the dozens of figures targeted had also been under legal surveillance by Greece's intelligence services (EYP).Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who had placed EYP directly under his supervision, called it a scandal, but no government officials have been charged in court and critics accuse the government of trying to cover up the truth.The case dates back to the summer of 2022, when the current head of Greek Socialist party Pasok, Nikos Androulakis - then an MEP - was informed by the European Parliament's IT experts that he had received a malicious text message containing a link.Predator spyware, marketed by the Athens-based Israeli company Intellexa, can get access to a device's messages, camera, and microphone. Its use was illegal in Greece at that time but a new law passed in 2022 has since legalised state security use of surveillance software under strict conditions.Androulakis also discovered that he had been tracked for "national security reasons" by Greece's intelligence services.The scandal has since escalated into a debate over democratic accountability in Greece.Despite the seriousness of the case, this is the only part of it that has come to trial and took place in a court concerned only by misdemeanors.The small ground floor courtroom was full of Greek and foreign journalists on Thursday morning.The four defendants found guilty - two Greeks called Felix Bitzios and Yiannis Lavranos and two Israelis Tal Dilian and Sara Hamou – were not in the dock for the verdict, as had been the case during the five months the trial lasted.The court refused to grant mitigation to the defendants.The judge said that the defendants appear to have acted with the participation of "unknown third parties," explaining that among them there may be officials from Greek and foreign intelligence services, and decided to send the trial records to the Athens Prosecutor's Office so that it can be investigated whether a series of felonies were committed including the offense of espionage.Among the many public figures targeted in the scandal was Thanasis Koukakis, a financial reporter who investigates corruption."The decision satisfies me with regard to the violation of my private life," he told the BBC. "The court proved that there are safeguards in place for the functioning of the rule of law in Greece."After today's decision, justice must, without distraction, investigate the involvement of third parties in felony offenses," said Zacharias Kesses, a lawyer for victims of the Predator affair.