Greece’s intelligence director Panagiotis Kontoleon and Grigoris Dimitriadis, secretary-general to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, resigned on Friday amid accusations that the country’s National Intelligence Service (EYP) used software made by an Israeli-founded company to spy on opposition politicians and journalists. Kontoleon resigned “following mistaken actions found during lawful wiretapping procedures,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
Reuters reported that two lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Athens’ top spook admitted during a closed-door parliamentary hearing earlier last week that his agency spied on CNN financial journalist Thanasis Koukakis. The hearing came after a complaint from Nikos Androulakis, the leader of the socialist opposition PASOK party, who told prosecutors that an attempt was made to bug his cellphone using Predator spyware in September 2021.
Androulakis claims that EYP listened to his conversations in late 2021. “We found out today that EYP, which reports directly to the prime minister, proceeded with wiretapping me during the internal electoral process over PASOK’s leadership,” he said.
Predator, which has been described as “almost identical” to the controversial Pegasus software made by Israel’s NSO Group, is produced by Cytrox, a shadowy company run by former Israeli military intelligence officer Tal Dilian. Cytrox is closely linked to another Israeli-founded cyber firm, Inpedio, and reportedly owned by yet another firm, Intellexa, which Forbes says is an “alliance” of surveillance businesses founded by Dilian. Intellexa used to operate primarily in Cyprus but later moved to Greece.