The ruling was issued by the Council of State, Greece’s supreme administrative court, which is examining Koukakis’s legal challenge over the surveillance of his communications. Koukakis, an investigative journalist, was one of the figures targeted both by a state-authorised wiretap and by the illegal spyware Predator.
The court has effectively instructed EYP to transmit to the judges the entire official file related to the decision to lift the confidentiality of Koukakis’s communications, along with any other relevant material. The intelligence service must submit the documents in a way it considers compatible with their classified nature.
In a notable part of the ruling, the judges also addressed the possibility that the intelligence service might claim the file has been destroyed. If that is the case, the court said, EYP must explain under which legal provision the destruction took place and must reconstruct the file before submitting it.
The Council of State has postponed its final judgment in the case and has given EYP three months to deliver the requested material to the court.
Legal observers in Greece describe the decision as an important step in clarifying the circumstances of the surveillance case. It comes shortly after a separate ruling by a lower criminal court in Athens that found four private businessmen guilty in connection with the use of Predator spyware and ordered further investigations into possible espionage offences involving additional individuals.
The Koukakis case has become one of the central elements of Greece’s wider wiretapping scandal, which emerged in 2022 when it was revealed that politicians, journalists and officials had been targeted by surveillance. The affair sparked domestic political turmoil and international concern about press freedom and the rule of law in the country.
Opposition parties reacted quickly to the latest court development. PASOK–KINAL said the decision shows the wiretapping scandal can no longer be concealed, arguing that the court has moved beyond simply examining the constitutionality of the legal framework and is now carrying out substantive judicial scrutiny of the surveillance itself. The party also noted that the court made clear the intelligence service cannot avoid accountability by claiming documents were destroyed, since it must provide the legal basis for such an action and reconstruct the file.
Another opposition party, New Left, said the ruling closes off “every loophole for a cover-up,” calling it a second major setback for the government following the recent court convictions related to the Predator spyware network.
SYRIZA also criticised the government following the court’s decision, describing the order to hand over the surveillance file as another strong blow to what it called attempts to conceal the wiretapping scandal. In a statement, the party said the government had spent years trying to bury the case, hide evidence and block institutional oversight, but is now confronted with both justice and the truth. SYRIZA added that the “darkness” imposed by the government’s centralised system of power is beginning to lift, and suggested that other victims of surveillance may follow Koukakis’s example and seek answers through the courts.
Koukakis’s lawyers, Zacharias Kesses and Giorgos Stamatiadis, welcomed the ruling, describing it as a key moment in a long legal battle. They said the decision obliges the intelligence service to provide within three months the material it had consistently refused to share with the independent authority responsible for overseeing the secrecy of communications as well as with the court itself.
They also stressed the importance of the judges’ decision to anticipate a possible claim that the evidence had been destroyed, noting that the court has now required EYP to justify such a claim legally and reconstruct the file if necessary.
According to the lawyers, the ruling represents a significant step toward restoring legality and ensuring that intelligence services remain subject to judicial oversight, particularly when fundamental rights such as the privacy of communications are at stake.
