Greece’s Supreme Court on Tuesday said a two-year probe had found no proof that the country’s intelligence service used a notorious malware software at the heart of a wiretap scandal.
“State intelligence… was not involved with the Predator spyware or any similar software,” Supreme Court prosecutor Georgia Adeilini said in a statement.
The court prosecutor’s office had conducted an “in-depth investigation of every facet of the case,” Adeilini said.
A number of ministers and other officials were revealed in 2022 to have been under surveillance by state intelligence — which is supervised by the prime minister’s office.
At least 11 people including the prosecutor of the state intelligence agency EYP and the head of Greek police were also found to have been targeted with the Predator malware, a media investigation including French online newspaper Mediapart, German magazine Der Spiegel and Greek site Reporters United said in November.
Though the purpose of the state wiretaps was classified and was never disclosed, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis later told parliament the monitoring was legal.
Greece’s intelligence chief and Mitsotakis’ nephew, who was a top aide in his office, both resigned when it emerged that European Parliament lawmaker Nikos Androulakis, who later became the leader of the Greek socialist party, was among those under legal surveillance.
Despite numerous queries, Androulakis has received no official answer as to why he was under state surveillance.
In January 2023, the government easily overcame a no-confidence vote on the case.
The criminal investigation began in April 2022 and was taken up by the Supreme Court last October.
Over 40 witnesses testified, and Greece also requested assistance from US and Swiss authorities.
Critics have said valuable time was lost in launching the investigation, compromising key evidence.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said there was “sufficient” evidence to prosecute a number of unnamed telecoms executives for failing to safeguard telephone communication confidentiality.
But at best, the charges will be misdemeanours, it said.
In November, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said Greece was effectively sabotaging the probe.
“The investigation is at a complete standstill and Greek institutions seem determined not to let it progress,” it said.
