The defendants were convicted of offences committed jointly, including interference with a personal data archiving system (actual and attempted), violations of the confidentiality of telephone communications and oral conversation (actual and attempted), and unlawful access to an information system or data (actual and attempted).

Reading the decision, the presiding judge stated that ‘from the consideration of all the evidence and in particular the witness statements, but also the documents that revealed the truth, it was proven that the defendants, following a co-decision, together with other accomplices, committed the acts with common intent. They gained access to personal data and personal conversations.’

The court accepted the prosecutor’s position on the characterisation of certain offences, treating acts involving 87 phones as committed ‘in series’ rather than ‘consecutively’, as originally attributed. The completed offences concerned the phones of journalist Thanasis Koukakis and European Parliament member Eva Kaili’s adviser Artemis Seaford, as well as three further individuals who, as the hearing established, had clicked on a bait link sent to them. The attempted offences for which the defendants were convicted concerned 82 acts involving phones.

The presiding judge noted that the offence of unlawful access to an information system requires a prior complaint, and accepted only seven cases in which complaints had been filed, albeit late. He confirmed that ‘the prosecution of all victims who did not file a complaint to the 108 number is definitively terminated’.

In total, the four defendants were sentenced to 126 years and eight months in prison, with eight years to be served. The court granted suspensive effect to their appeal.

Prosecutor’s request for further investigation

After the verdict, the court accepted a proposal by the prosecutor, Dimitris Pavlidis, for criminal investigation of specific people for specific offences.

Pavlidis requested that the four convicted businessmen and six other people, both foreign nationals and Greek citizens, be investigated for espionage in its misdemeanour form. As he put it: ‘Based on the evidence presented in the proceedings, I propose the transmission of copies of the case file for the investigation of the criminal responsibilities of the present defendants and other persons.’

The court decided to forward the trial records to the Athens prosecutor’s office for:

  • the owner of the prepaid card used to purchase and send the ‘infected’ SMS messages to Nikos Androulakis and others, to be examined for possible collaboration in the acts described in the indictment. Pavlidis said the witness ‘did not give convincing explanations for the use of the card and fell into contradictions’, adding that ‘perhaps the lawsuits of Messrs. Androulakis and Koukakis should be related to this case file’

  • investigation of alleged false testimony in court by that witness and by an executive of one of the companies involved with Predator

  • assessment of the criminal responsibilities of six named individuals, foreign nationals and Greek citizens, who, according to the prosecutor, had a full picture of what was happening, as well as the four convicted defendants, for whom he said sufficient evidence emerges for misdemeanour espionage

  • investigation of alleged perjury relating to testimony given to parliament’s inquiry committee in 2022 by one of the convicted businessmen and an executive of one of the companies involved.

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