By decision of its plenary session, the Council of State of Greece has ordered the National Intelligence Service of Greece to submit the complete file concerning the surveillance, via Predator spyware, of journalist Thanasis Koukakis in the wiretapping scandal.
The court gave EYP a deadline of three months to transmit the relevant documents relating to the monitoring of Koukakis.
It also ordered EYP to send the official file concerning the lifting of the confidentiality of the applicant’s communications, as well as any other relevant information, in a manner that the service itself considers compatible with the classified nature of the material, according to the court’s announcement.
In 2022, Koukakis was the first to discover that his mobile phone had been “infected” with Predator spyware and shortly afterwards submitted an official request to the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy.
For its part, EYP stated that the official file has been destroyed or is no longer available. The Council of State has asked to be informed under which legislative provision the destruction took place, while also ordering the reconstruction of the file so that a full judicial investigation of the case can be carried out.
The case concerning Thanasis Koukakis constitutes the second major intervention by the Council of State regarding the issue of informing citizens who have been placed under surveillance. It follows the ruling that upheld the request of Nikos Androulakis, president of PASOK, to be informed of the reasons why he had been placed under surveillance by EYP.
“The recent decisions of the Council of State regarding surveillance cases confirm in the clearest possible way that the government of New Democracy and the political supervisor of EYP, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, led the country into an unprecedented institutional deviation,” PASOK said in a statement.
Sources:The Press Project, Εf.Sin.