The Greek Prime Minister’s office announced that Greek intelligence director Panagiotis Kontolio resigned on Friday amid an alleged spying scandal against the politician and journalist by the illegal news program Predator.
“Director of National Intelligence Panagiotis Kontolione submitted his resignation (…) which was accepted by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis,” the statement said.
Appointed in August 2019, Kontolio’s resignation comes a week after an attempt to use the program to spy on the leader of the opposition Greek Socialist Party was revealed.
It also happened just hours after the resignation of Gregory Demetriades, Secretary General of the Prime Minister’s Office, and his nephew.
Their resignation came a week after it was revealed that Nikos Androlakis, leader of the Kinal PASOK (Socialist) party, the third party in parliament, was being monitored by the same program, sparking protests.
“Finding out who is behind this harmful practice is not a private matter, but a democratic duty,” Androlakis said, urging the government to refrain from “any attempt (…) to play down the issue.”
This is the third case of alleged espionage in Greece in less than a year: in April, Thanasis Koukakis, a Greek financial journalist, filed a lawsuit in which he convicted the Predator of snooping on his phone.
In February, a case of alleged wiretapping by the security services of another Greek investigative journalist on immigration was brought to the Supreme Court.
In all three cases, the government ruled out “any state involvement”.
The wiretap attempt on leader Kinal Pasuk, which the main opposition party SYRIZA (far left) called a “major scandal”, was discussed Friday in a closed session of the Parliamentary Committee on Institutions and Transparency.
And investigative website Reporters United found that the second resigned official, Demetriades, “is associated with individuals and entities directly or indirectly involved in the wiretapping case.”
Alexis Tsipras, leader of the left-wing SYRIZA party and former prime minister, on Friday called Dimitriades’ resignation “an admission of guilt.” He also referred to “the prime minister’s personal responsibility”.
The government has repeatedly denied involvement in the alleged wiretapping operations over the past few months, noting that the state has not purchased such programs.
