Prosecutor reopens probe into mobile executive’s 2005 death
An Athens Appeals Court prosecutor on Wednesday reopened the case of the alleged suicide of a mobile telephone company executive implicated in a major wiretapping scandal in the wake of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.
Prosecutor Antonis Liogas ordered a new investigation into the death of 38-year-old Vodafone employee Costas Tsalikidis, who was found by his mother hanging from the bathroom lintel in his Athens apartment in 2005, a day before Greek authorities announced the discovery of spyware that was covertly planted in Vodafone’s network as part of security measures for the Games to listen into the conversations of dozens of Greek officials and politicians, including former prime minister Costas Karamanlis.
Liogas’s decision comes a week after the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of Tsalikidis’s family, which believes the Greek state failed to adequately investigate fresh evidence suggesting that the 38-year-old did not hang himself but may have been murdered because of his possible involvement in the wiretapping case.
