The trial at the center of Greece’s phone-tapping scandal opened in Athens this week with explosive testimony from opposition leader Nikos Androulakis, who accused the government of shielding an “organized parastate” behind the illegal surveillance of politicians, journalists, and public figures.
Androulakis, head of the Socialist PASOK party and a member of the European Parliament, has joined the case as a civil party. He alleged that the now-sanctioned Intellexa spyware network and Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP) operated in tandem to obstruct his rise to the PASOK leadership.
“They didn’t want me to be elected president of PASOK and did everything they could — with Predator and the EYP,” he told the court. “It was an organized parastate.”
The Socialist leader said he discovered the attempted hacking of his mobile phone in 2022 after the European Parliament’s cybersecurity service detected traces of Predator, a surveillance tool capable of secretly recording calls, messages, and data. When the spyware failed, he claimed, EYP began conventional wiretapping that ended only days after his election as party leader. “Isn’t that strange?” he asked the judges.
Androulakis accused the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of obstructing justice and ignoring rulings by Greece’s highest court, adding that his case has now been referred to the European Court of Human Rights.
The Athens trial targets four business figures accused of violating communications privacy laws: Giannis Lavranos, reportedly the real owner of the tech contractor Krikel, and Felix Bitzios, Tal Dilian, and Sara Hamou, linked to Intellexa — the company that developed and managed Predator.
Former minister Olga Gerovasili, who is also among those reportedly surveilled, testified that she was certain the EYP’s monitoring and Predator operations were connected. “There was coordination between those using the illegal software and the EYP,” she told the court. “This was a direct intervention in the political life of the country.”
Gerovasili added that Krikel had been under contract with the Greek police since 2014. During her tenure, she said, payments to the company were halted because its systems were not functioning, and she was unable to contact its representatives.
The Greek proceedings come amid parallel investigations in Switzerland and Ireland, underscoring the widening legal and political fallout from the spread of commercial spyware across Europe.
Intellexa, founded by former Israeli intelligence officer Tal Dilian, has been under U.S. sanctions since 2023. Its web of companies spans several jurisdictions, including Ireland and Switzerland. Swiss prosecutors last year charged Intellexa executive Andrea Gambazzi with marketing and exporting Predator without authorization, and the country’s Supreme Court recently ruled that documents seized from him can be used as evidence.
Thalestris Switzerland SA — a now-liquidated Intellexa subsidiary — is part of a corporate structure that includes Intellexa Limited and Thalestris Limited, both registered in Ireland and both blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury. Irish authorities have come under growing scrutiny over their oversight of these firms, while the European Commission faces questions from Members of the European Parliament about how EU-backed funds reached spyware companies such as Intellexa through investment vehicles like the European Investment Fund.
he Athens trial is set to continue on November 3, as pressure mounts on European institutions to curb what a group of EU lawmakers recently described as “a threat to democracy funded with public money.”
