Mitsotakis dismisses newspaper wiretapping claims as ‘shame and disgrace’
A newspaper report claiming more than 30 people, including ministers and businesspeople, were under state surveillance via phone malware has been dismissed as lacking any evidence by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
“There is absolutely no evidence and there is no connection with me,” Mitsotakis said of the article, which appeared in the Documento newspaper, adding that it was a “shame and disgrace.”
In a pre-recorded interview with Ant1 TV, the prime minister alleged that main opposition leader Alexis Tsipras, “who wants to drag the country through the mire,” was behind Documento’s publisher, Kostas Vaxevanis.
He added that unless Vaxevanis can provide evidence for his claims, he is a “national danger.”
“Political confrontation cannot fall to this level. The prime minister cannot be accused of spying on his ministers without proof,” Mistotakis said, adding that “there is no Greek who believes that I spied on my government ministers in my spare time.”
“I have never denied that there is a center handling the predator malware, but that is very different to accusing the prime minister of orchestrating this surveillance,” Misotakis said.
“From the very beginning we accepted there was a problem. We don’t know where it comes from, but we’re going to unravel this mess,” he said of the wiretapping scandal.
“I don’t know who is conducting the monitoring. We need to find out. It is not the EYP [National Intelligence Service] and I have no involvement,” he insisted, noting that Greece will be the first country to explicitly prohibit the use of spyware.
He challenged Tsipras to table a motion of no confidence in his government, reiterating that the next elections will be held in 2023.
“I will not be drawn into developments by professional extortionists,” Mitotakis said.
