The case has drawn international attention due to the use of Predator—commercial spyware capable of covertly accessing mobile phones—against politicians, journalists, and business figures. On trial are Greek nationals Giannis Lavranos and Felix Bitzios, alongside Intellexa executives Tal Dillian and Sara Hamou.
During the previous court session, judges heard new evidence concerning a prepaid payment card allegedly used to finance key elements of the surveillance infrastructure, including servers, domain registrations, and the mass sending of malicious SMS messages designed to infect targets’ phones with Predator. According to court documents, the card was used for dozens of transactions between June 2020 and December 2021. Its activity appears to have ceased shortly after international watchdogs and technology companies published reports exposing Predator’s deployment.
Further disclosures about the card’s use are expected during today’s proceedings.
At the center of this aspect of the case is 51-year-old Aimilios Kosmidis, the registered holder of the prepaid card. Testifying before the court, Kosmidis claimed he never activated or knowingly used the card. He said it had been mailed to him in 2010 as a promotional “gift” from Cosmote, Greece’s largest telecommunications provider, as part of a customer loyalty program. According to his testimony, he does not know what became of the card and suggested it may have been lost during a house cleaning while he was away.
Kosmidis told the court that he only began to realize the seriousness of the matter after being contacted by investigative journalist Tasos Telloglou of the outlet Inside Story. He said he made repeated attempts to obtain the card’s transaction history from the National Bank of Greece but was unable to do so, claiming he was referred to the bank’s headquarters, where his inquiries went unanswered.
Tensions rose in the courtroom when Kosmidis referred to a friend, Kostas Petrisis, who worked at a Cosmote retail store in the Athens suburb of Alimos and who, according to the witness, had confided that he provided “facilitations” to the EYP. Following this statement, the presiding judge warned Kosmidis that unless he could substantiate his claims and demonstrate his own lack of involvement, he himself could face criminal charges.
The prosecutor reinforced this warning, stressing that courts assess the overall credibility of a case and noting that the late emergence of key information does not favor those involved. Kosmidis, for his part, maintained that he had no reason to believe he was implicated in any wrongdoing.
Journalist Eliza Triantafyllou, also testifying, said her investigation found that Petrisis was indeed being paid by the EYP while working at the Cosmote store, receiving an additional monthly payment of approximately €500.
The prepaid card in question is alleged to have been used to send Predator-infected messages to several high-profile figures, including Nikos Androulakis, leader of the center-left PASOK–KINAL party and a Member of the European Parliament. Transaction records presented in court show extensive spending on server services and technical infrastructure until December 2021, even as organizations such as Citizen Lab and Meta were publishing their first public reports on Predator—reports that helped trigger the broader scandal.
Beyond the technical evidence, the case has taken on added political and institutional significance following the recent retirement of two senior officers of the Hellenic Police who had professional ties to the intelligence services during the period in question. Evangelia Georgakopoulou and Georgia Zara were removed from active service during recent evaluations, both holding the rank equivalent to brigadier.
According to media reports and testimony cited in court, Georgakopoulou served as a senior official within the EYP and was responsible for authorizing wiretaps on figures including Androulakis and investigative journalist Thanasis Koukakis. She also supervised dozens of police officers seconded to the intelligence service, many of whom were returned to their original posts after the first revelations emerged. Lawyers representing civil plaintiffs have described her as a key operator in the Predator system—an allegation she has publicly denied.
Georgia Zara, who testified as a witness, attracted attention by initially describing her relationship with Georgakopoulou as purely professional, disclosing only after persistent questioning that the two women are also linked through family ties. Despite extensive media coverage, Zara insisted that Predator was never meaningfully discussed between them and maintained that she had no knowledge of or involvement in the surveillance operation.
