A Greek court on Thursday sentenced four suspects, including two Israelis, to eight years in prison over a landmark spyware scandal that shook the government in 2022.
The case involved the illegal use of Predator software to target the phones of more than 90 politicians, journalists, business leaders and senior military officials.
The defendants include Tal Dilian, a former Israeli soldier and founder of Intellexa, a company that specialized in supplying spyware and marketed the Predator software in Greece.
Intellexa was sanctioned by the US in 2024 under then-president Joe Biden, marking the first time that the Treasury Department sanctioned people or entities for the misuse of spyware. His successor, Donald Trump, dropped the sanctions the following year.
Dilian has previously denied any involvement or wrongdoing in the Greek case.
His partner, Sara Hamou, as well as two former Greek executives of the company, were also on trial.
The defendants, who were not present in court, were found guilty of “breaching the confidentiality of telephone communications,” according to the judge.
They were also found guilty of “tampering with a personal-data filing system… on a repeated basis,” as well as of “illegal access to an information system or data,” the judge said.
The four will remain free pending an appeal requested by their lawyers.
Predator is sophisticated software that makes it possible to infiltrate mobile phones, access messages and photos, and even remotely activate the microphone and camera. The spyware, which has been used in dozens of countries, has enabled unauthorized data extraction, geolocation tracking, and access to personal information on compromised devices.
The affair emerged in early 2022 when a Greek investigative journalist, Thanassis Koukakis, discovered he had been wiretapped by the intelligence services (EYP) and that his phone had also been infected with the Predator spyware.
According to the Greek Authority for Communication Security and Privacy watchdog (ADAE), the spyware was used against more than 90 people.
Dubbed the “Greek Watergate” by local media, it forced the resignation of senior officials in Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s administration.
It snowballed into a political scandal in July 2022, when the soon-to-be leader of the socialist Pasok-Kinal party, Nikos Androulakis, revealed that his cellphone had also been tapped.
At the time, Androulakis was a member of the European Parliament.
The scandal led to the resignation of one of the prime minister’s closest aides, his nephew Grigoris Dimitriadis. The head of the EYP intelligence service also stepped down.
Mitsotakis later weathered a motion of no confidence in parliament over the case.
In July 2024, the Supreme Court cleared the intelligence services and political officials of wrongdoing, angering victims and human rights bodies.
Paris-based media rights campaigners Reporters Without Borders (RSF) have described the case as “a fresh blow to media freedom” in Greece.
Only two proven victims of Predator were questioned by the Supreme Court, and the prosecutor did not request access to the bank accounts of the company that marketed the software.
The Greek employees who, in December 2021, hurriedly moved the servers out of their office were not questioned either.
“One may wonder whether the case was really investigated or whether everything was done to bury it,” Androulakis’s lawyer, Christos Kaklamanis, told the court.
The socialist leader has filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
