File Photo: Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis speaks with members of his government and lawmakers during a parliamentary session on a wiretapping case, in Athens, Greece, August 26, 2022. (REUTERS/Costas Baltas)
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday denied media reports that he was behind an alleged round of wiretaps targeting government ministers, business people and journalists.
"It’s an incredible lie,” Mitsotakis said in an interview with ANT1 TV.
The premier’s comments follow media reports over the weekend claiming that he was behind wiretaps on some of his ministers, a former prime minister from his party, and a number of business people and journalists. The accounts, which appeared in media outlets with ties to the left-wing opposition, claimed the so-called Predator spyware had been used in the wiretaps.
"There is absolutely no evidence that this was actually happening and absolutely no connection to me personally,” the premier said.
Mitsotakis has been under pressure following previous revelations that the country’s intelligence service spied on Nikos Androulakis, the leader of the opposition Pasok party and a member of the European Parliament, as well as on an journalist Thanasis Koukakis.
The government has said a prosecutor will investigate, though in the Androulakis case both the government and the intelligence service have said the surveillance was justified by national security concerns and that they received approval from prosecutors, without providing further details.
Athens has regularly denied that its security services have bought or used Predator, which was detected on Androulakis’s phone during a check by European Parliament security officials.
A delegation from a European Parliament committee on the use of Pegasus and other spyware traveled to Greece last week for discussions on the case, though the visit left many questions unanswered, according to committee President Jeroen Lenaers. Greece’s plan to introduce a law banning the use of spyware by private companies is a step in the right direction, he said.
"We never said that there was no tapping,” Mitsotakis said in the interview, but he drew a distinction between the cases and accusations that he was behind the spying as reported in the media.
