Top supreme court prosecutor to begin probe into leaks regarding intelligence service’s phone surveillance

Greece’s supreme court chief prosecutor on Friday evening announced that he’ll personally commence a preliminary investigation into what’s termed as “leaks” affecting the country’s national security, and specifically media reports citing information on the surveillance of opposition PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis’ mobile phone, as well as a local journalist’s phone.

High court prosecutor Isidoros Dogiakos announced the probe into “…the manner in which information about the surveillance of certain people was leaked.” The leaked information, according to Dogiakos, emanates from “highly classified state documents that deal with “…the process of lifting the privacy of (phone) communications on issues that affect the country’s national security.”

Besides Androulakis, journalist Thanasis Koukakis has charged that his phone conversations were tapped.

A separate probe by the Athens prosecutor’s office is already underway on the substance of the surveillance.

Earlier, the Mitsotakis government announced that it will back a demand by Androulakis to establish a Parliamentary fact-finding committee to investigate whether there’s political responsibility behind an order to eavesdrop on his mobile phone.

The announcement came hours after the head of Greece’s intelligence service (EYP), Panagiotis Kontoleon, and the general secretary of the prime minister’s office, Grigoris Dimitriadis, resigned amid stepped up opposition criticism and media scrutiny regarding the possible illegal surveillance of Androulakis and Koukakis. Dimitriadis flatly denied any wrongdoing and pledged to file slander suits in relations to several media reports.
“The minute the case of a legal ‘inter-connection’ involving Mr. Androulakis, following approval by the prosecutor’s office, came to the Prime Minster’s attention, the government attempted, through Mr. (George) Gerapetritis (the minister of state), to fully brief him, yet Mr. Androulakis chose not to respond, government spokesman Yannis Economou said in the evening.

Economou also referred to “leaks” on the part of PASOK demanding the convening of Parliament’s institutions and transparency committee, something that “the government will agree to…hoping that this time Mr. Androulakis will personally attend, in order to be briefed and receive answers to everything re