ATHENS – Setting aside claims by a journalist and leader of PASOK their phones were targeted by Predator spyware and bugged, Greek Supreme Court Prosecutor Georgia Adilini cleared the National Intelligence Service EYP and state services.

But there was no answer as to who would have infected the phones of Socialist party chief Nikos Androulakis and journalist Thanasis Koukakis who claimed they had been under state surveillance, including with the spyware.

The government had allowed Predator to be sold and used in Greece before barring it after stories broke that it was found on the phones of dozens of politicians, reporters and business executives, but had repeatedly denied using it.

“The abundant evidence clearly shows that there was no involvement of any state service, including the National Intelligence Service (EYP), the Anti-Terrorist Unit or the Greek Police (Ministry of Citizen Protection), with the Predator spyware or any similar software,” a statement from the prosecutor’s office said.

She added that representatives and owners of companies involved with the spyware will be prosecuted for violating the privacy of telephone communications, but now just misdemeanors under a 2019 change in the law allowing for leniency.

The government has also asserted that it does not own or use the Predator spyware, and has insisted that the simultaneous targeting with a wiretap and Predator was just a coincidence, which critics disputed.

The prosecutor’s office said there were indications that the companies selling the spyware were tied to privacy violations against high-profile people in other countries, the product a favorite of authoritarian governments to keep tabs on rivals, journalists and critics.

EYP had admitted bugging the phones of 15,745 for national security reasons not explained and refused to reveal who they were and the prosecutor said it had been done with the approval of then EYP prosecutor Angeliki Vlachou from 2020-24.

But a surveillance scandal led to the leader of the intelligence service Panagiotios Kontoleon resigning, as did Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ Secretary-General and liaison with EYP – his nephew Grigoris Dimitriadis.