Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis declined on Sunday to give a direct assurance that no state agency had acquired the Predator spyware, bringing renewed attention to a surveillance scandal that has dogged his government since 2022.
At his annual news conference at the Thessaloniki International Fair, Greece’s largest political and business gathering, Mitsotakis was asked whether he could categorically rule out the purchase of Predator by any Greek government authority.
The question was posed by Georgia Sakoula, a journalist with Efimerida ton Syntakton, who cited statements by Israeli businessman Tal Dilian that his company sold Predator exclusively to state agencies and wasn’t involved in how clients subsequently used it.
Dilian was convicted at first instance in Greece in proceedings connected to the spyware affair. The case is subject to appeal.
The question carried particular significance because Greece’s National Intelligence Service, known as EYP, was placed under the authority of the prime minister’s office after Mitsotakis took power in 2019.
Asked whether that oversight allowed him to assure the public that no state authority had purchased Predator, Mitsotakis didn’t answer directly.
“I have no intention of entering into such a public discussion with someone who is currently convicted at first instance and who has the right to seek his acquittal on appeal,” Mitsotakis said.
He said he had addressed the surveillance affair repeatedly in Parliament and noted that it first emerged publicly in the summer of 2022.
“The case has been judged by the justice system, including at the highest level, regarding the issue of any connection with state services,” Mitsotakis said, adding that proceedings involving the convictions of four people were still heading to appeal.
“I have nothing more to add,” he said.
The response left unanswered the narrower question posed to him: whether he could state unequivocally that no Greek state authority had acquired Predator.
Mitsotakis also declined to address Sakoula’s reference to Dilian having compared him to Richard Nixon, whose U.S. presidency ended amid the Watergate scandal.
The prime minister’s assertion that the question of links to state agencies has already been “judged” could also face scrutiny. Prosecutorial findings by Greece’s Supreme Court prosecutors don’t in themselves constitute an irrevocable court judgment, while aspects of the broader Predator case remain subject to further judicial proceedings.
The surveillance controversy became one of the biggest political crises of Mitsotakis’s premiership after revelations in 2022 involving the monitoring of politicians and journalists. It raised separate but overlapping questions about lawful surveillance conducted by EYP and the use of Predator, sophisticated software capable of gaining extensive access to a targeted mobile phone.
The government has denied that Greek state authorities used Predator.
The issue resurfaced Sunday against the backdrop of a widening confrontation between Mitsotakis and former conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, once a leader of Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party.
Samaras issued a blistering response to Mitsotakis, accusing him of transforming the traditional center-right party into a vehicle dominated by the prime minister and his family.
Samaras, who served as prime minister from 2012 to 2015, said Mitsotakis risked being remembered for high living costs, corruption, pressure on the middle class and farmers, migration policy and what he described as an overly accommodating foreign policy.
He also explicitly included two politically damaging controversies in his indictment: the 2023 Tempi railway disaster and the wiretapping affair.
“This is not the political movement, Mr. Mitsotakis,” Samaras said. “This is the Mitsotakis party.”
