Prosecutors removed from probe had asked ADAE to cross-check spying orders
The two public prosecutors investigating Greece’s wiretapping scandal who were taken off the case on Monday had asked the independent authority responsible for privacy, ADAE, to check whether the 92 people targeted by illegal spyware Predator had also been surveilled by the country’s intelligence service, EYP.
This line of inquiry, it is believed, would be able to strengthen the case for the existence of a single monitoring center. Since the scandal broke out, the investigation has confirmed that at least three people were targeted by both Predator and EYP – Artemis Seaford, a dual US-Greek national and former Meta employee, PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis and journalist Thanassis Koukakis – however, there had not been a systematic investigation in this direction.
Three weeks ago, prosecutors Angeliki Triantafillou and Konstantinos Spyropoulos, who have been investigating the scandal since late 2022, sent the request to ADAE whose newly appointed plenary met on October 18. The board cited a controversial legal opinion of the former chief prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Isidoros Dogiakos, issued in January this year which argued that ADAE cannot conduct audits of telecommunication companies to find out who is under surveillance by the country’s intelligence agency.
The legal opinion, however, concerned the right of Greek citizens to learn if they had been spied on, not requests by prosecutors. Triantafillou and Spyropoulos resubmitted their request to ADAE on October 20.
On Monday, Supreme Court Prosecutor Georgia Adeilini ordered them to hand over the case file to Deputy Prosecutor Achilleas Zisis, citing delays in the completion of the probe and “a risk of the statute of limitations expiring” for the crimes under investigation.
