NEWS

US was worries about wiretap allegations

The United States Ambassador to Greece in 2006, Charles Ries felt that the government in Athens had allowed the Greek public and media to believe that the USA was behind the hacking of the phones of then prime minister, Costas Karamanlis, and more than 100 others.

According to embassy cables obtained by Kathimerini via WikiLeaks, Ries expressed concern that the US was being linked to the wiretaps, which operated during and after the Athens 2004 Olympics. Ries did, however, applaud Karamanlis?s decision to replace Public Order Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis in 2006, saying that he had allowed rumors to circulate that the USA was behind the phone hacking.

Ries reported a meeting with then Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis in which the Greek diplomat is supposed to have suggested that Voulgarakis and other ministers made too much of a ?fuss? by making a televised presentation of their findings rather than handing them to a prosecutor.

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