Supreme Court prosecutor to interrogate journalists on leaks of EYP, private phone tapping

Supreme Court Prosecutor Isidoros Dogiakos will begin his investigation of leaks of top secret documents from the National Intelligence Service (EYP) that led to revelations that the phone of the current leader of the centre-left PASOK-KINAL party, Nikos Androulakis, was being tapped by EYP during the party leadership campaign (between September and December, 2021).

The surveillance ceased two days after Androulakis was elected to the party leadership on 5 December, 2021.

Dogiakos has been criticised by opposition parties for beginning the probe, which he decided to personally take on, with an investigation of leaks from EYP rather than with the circumstances surrounding the surveillance of the politician.

The Androulakis affair has caused a major political uproar, and even President Katerina Sakellaropoulou today issued a statement in which she said that the constitutional provision providing for the surveillance of citizens for reasons of national security be religiously enforced

The leaks being investigated by Dogiakos also involve the surveillance of journalists Thanasis Koukakis and Stavros Malihoudis.

Dogiakis summons investigative journalist Tasos Teloglou

Veteran investigative journalist Tasos Teloglou has been summoned by Dogiakos to appear tomorrow tell what he knows about his allegation in a tweet that while PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis was head of main opposition New Democracy under the previous SYRIZA government, his phone was hacked with Predator spyware.

Koukakis asks Dogiakos to take specific actions

Koukakis in a tweet refers to seven specific actions that he wants Dogiakos to take seven specific actions:

1. To ask prosecutor Vasiliki Vlachou, who is attached to EYP and signed the orders permitting the surveillance of both his and Androulakis’ phones by EYP, to answer who requested his surveillance and with what rationale.

2. To be given the prosecutor’s order to cease surveillance of his phone, the very sme day that he submitted a request to the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy, on 12 August, 2020, to inform him if he is under surveillance.

3. To be given the informational bulletins containing the transcripts of his conversations and to be informed to whom they were sent so that they would be informed. “That is the only way to ascertain who truly was interested in my conversations and who was aware of me being under surveillance,” he said.

4. To conduct an on-site inspection and seizure of all relevant documents, of all archives of the recorded surveillance, and of the equipment of the companies Intellexa and Krikel, in order to determine if they have in their possession Predator spyware and to whom they have made it available or given it.

5. To order the opening and inspection of the bank accounts of companies, the names of which he gave to a prosecutor nearly three months ago, on 24 May, in order to determine the path of the money transactions and the connections between companies that sell Predator spyware.

6. To immediately summon for questioning the true owners of the Intellexa and Krikel companies (and not their managers, accountants or lawyers), and to demand explanations from them and that they hand over all related documents.

7. To investigate who requested hastily the amendment of Article 5 §9 of law 2225/1994 on 31 March, 2022, in order to be informed by the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy that the confidentiality of his communications had been lifted in the summer of 2020.

Teloglou’s allegations of continued hacking by ‘private party’

Dogiakos will question Teloglou regarding his assertion that then main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis was placed under surveillance by persons unknown.

He has also maintained that there is ongoing illegal surveillance of other individuals.

“The private party who, under the previous government, actively ‘listened’ to the main opposition leader in his most private moments, while speaking to his wife or daughter, is now doing the same with others, and some of them belong to the same party as those who resigned,” Teloglou stated in a tweet.

Dogiakos is reportedly examining the possibility that one or more employees of the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy were involved in leaking information regarding surveillance operations.