“If Prime Minister Kyriákos Mitsotakis is re-elected with a clear majority, the scandals [qui ont émaillé son mandat] risk being buried, estimated the journalist Thodoris Chondrogiannos. It is because the situation of the press in Greece has deteriorated sharply under the mandate of the conservative leader Kyriákos Mitsotákis, in power since July 2019. Re-elected on May 21, he called on voters to vote again on June 25 to obtain absolute majority in Parliament. Tasos Telloglou can attest to this deterioration of the media landscape.
In May 2022, this investigative journalist for the independent media Inside Story was followed in the Athens neighborhood of Kolonaki. A policeman went to the parking lot where he usually parks, asking the guard to access his car. The journalist then discovered that his phone was monitored by the Greek secret service (EYP).
It was not a spy film, but the daily life of journalists who revealed one of the biggest scandals in Greece: the wiretapping of political opponents, reporters, entrepreneurs by the EYP with the using spyware, Predator.
At least twelve journalists monitored
Tasos Telloglou investigated with other colleagues on this “Greek Watergate”. He discovered, in April 2022, the presence of spyware on the mobile phone of a colleague, journalist specializing in finance, Thanasis Koukakis: Predator makes it possible to record messages and calls – including those made with encrypted applications known to be safe. At least twelve Greek journalists said they were monitored by Predator.
In August 2022, Inside Story revealed that the head of the cabinet of Prime Minister Mitsotakis, who is none other than his nephew, had links with the company Intellexa, which markets Predator in Greece. Since then, Grigoris Dimitriadis has been sacked as well as the head of the secret services.
But the matter does not end there. Grigoris Dimitriadis is now claiming 150,000 euros in damages from the journalists he deems responsible for his dismissal. “It’s a way of discrediting our work”, supports Thodoris Chondrogiannos, journalist for United Reporters subject of the complaint. The website of United Reporters was also the target of phishing to try to gain access to sources.
Problematic business model
“Some people would like to stop us, but we will continue! launches Thodoris Chondrogiannos. We are only a dozen journalists to investigate such matters of public interest. » Because, for months, the “Greek Watergate” was not discussed in the television news or in the most widely read daily newspapers in the country. “We felt alone. The mainstream media only reported on it when the Socialist Party leader’s surveillance came to light last summer,” confides the journalist ofInside Story Eliza Triantafillou.
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