His statement came after the full written decision of a Greek court that sentenced him, his wife Sara Hamou and two Greek businessmen for offences related to illegal surveillance operations.
Dilian suggested that responsibility for the use of the spyware lay with state authorities rather than private individuals, although he did not name specific officials. He reiterated a long-standing claim that his company developed defensive surveillance software and sold it legally only to authorised government and law enforcement agencies.
He also made indirect reference to Grigoris Dimitriadis, a former senior official in the office of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose phone number had reportedly been used in spoofing attacks that sent Predator-infected messages when the system began operating in Greece. Dilian claimed that the court decision itself referred to the use of identities linked to senior government figures but that these leads were not fully investigated.
He further argued that evidence presented during the trial contradicted earlier conclusions by Greece’s supreme court prosecutor that there was no evidence linking the government or the National Intelligence Service to the illegal surveillance case. According to Dilian, several witnesses during the trial referred to possible involvement of the intelligence service.
Maintaining his innocence, Dilian said the Predator software was designed so that only the government agency operating it could identify surveillance targets and conduct operations, and that the company itself did not carry out surveillance. He claimed that national authorities select targets and run operations without the company’s knowledge.
He also alleged that a conspiracy had been organised to send innocent people to prison in order to protect political authorities, drawing a comparison with the Watergate scandal in the United States that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
The Predator spyware scandal has become one of the most serious political controversies in Greece in recent years. According to the country’s data protection authority, the spyware was used to target journalists, ministers, opposition politicians, judges, prosecutors, senior military officers, business figures and high-ranking police officials.
Investigations also found that roughly one in three Predator targets had previously been placed under legal surveillance for national security reasons, although Greece’s Supreme Court later said this overlap was coincidental and not evidence that legal and illegal surveillance were coordinated.
Dilian, his wife and their associates were sentenced by a first-instance court to prison terms exceeding 126 years in total, reduced to eight years under Greek law because the offences were classified as misdemeanours. The sentences have been suspended pending appeal. The court decision and trial records are now expected to be forwarded to prosecutors for further investigation into possible additional offences, including espionage, potentially involving other individuals beyond those already convicted.
In his latest statement, Dilian said he had remained silent during the trial but would now take his case to national, European and international institutions, including seeking the intervention of the United Nations special rapporteur on judicial independence.
