The founder of the surveillance technology company behind the Predator spyware is facing fresh legal scrutiny in Europe, with a new criminal complaint filed in Germany alleging an attempted spyware attack on a journalist, even as related court proceedings continue in Greece.
According to the German civil liberties organisation GFF (Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte), journalist Trung Khoa Lê and the organisation have filed a complaint with authorities in Berlin over an alleged attempt to infect the reporter's phone with Predator spyware in 2023.
The case concerns a broader campaign in which malicious links were reportedly distributed through the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, in an effort to compromise the devices of targeted individuals. Unlike earlier Predator attacks that relied on text messages, the 2023 operation is alleged to have used social media links to lure victims into installing the spyware.
Cybersecurity experts from Amnesty International previously concluded that, had Lê clicked on the link sent to him, his device would likely have been infected with Predator, a sophisticated surveillance tool capable of accessing messages, calls, microphones and cameras without a user's knowledge.
Predator was developed and marketed by Intellexa, a surveillance technology group founded by former Israeli military officer Tal Dilian. The spyware has become the focus of multiple investigations across Europe and beyond amid allegations that it was used to target journalists, politicians, business figures and civil society actors.
In their complaint, Lê and GFF have called on German prosecutors and police to identify those responsible for the attempted attack, arguing that the operation constituted a serious violation of privacy rights and threatened the confidentiality of journalistic sources, a cornerstone of press freedom in democratic societies.
The move opens a new legal front for Dilian, whose company has already been at the centre of one of Greece's most significant surveillance scandals. The Predator affair triggered years of political controversy after reports emerged that journalists, opposition politicians and other public figures had been targeted with spyware alongside state surveillance operations.
Although Greece's Supreme Court recently declined to reopen part of the investigation concerning allegations of espionage, Dilian is due to appear before an appeals court in Athens on 11 December alongside three other individuals previously convicted in a lower court: Sarah Hamou, Giannis Lavranos and Felix Bitzios.
