The founder of spyware maker Intellexa said he plans to appeal a conviction handed down by a Greek court on charges that he and three other executives illegally obtained personal data as part of a mass wiretapping campaign in the country.
The spying scandal, sometimes referred to as “Greek Watergate,” involved the hacking of dozens of phones belonging to senior Greek government ministers, opposition leaders, military officials and journalists using Intellexa’s Predator spy software. The tool can infiltrate iPhones and Android devices to steal call logs, text messages, emails and location data, usually by tricking a target into clicking on a malicious link.
Several senior officials of the Greek government, among them the head of the National Intelligence Service of Greece and senior aide to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, resigned following revelations that several journalists’ phones had been hacked. No government official has been convicted in connection with the surveillance, and critics have accused the Mitsotakis government of a cover-up.
Intellexa founder Tal Dilian was convicted in February and sentenced to eight years in prison. In a statement Reuters first reported on Wednesday, he said he would not be a “scapegoat.”
Whether Dilian is a scapegoat or not, as he claims, the remark is the most direct suggestion yet from anyone inside Intellexa that the Mitsotakis government authorized the hacks.
“I think a conviction without evidence is not justice, it could be part of a cover-up and even a crime,” Dilian told Reuters. It said it was willing to share data with national and international regulators.
Dilian did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment on his remarks. The Greek embassy in Washington, DC did not immediately respond when contacted by TechCrunch.
Dilian also told Reuters that surveillance technologies like the Predator are usually only sold to governments, which are responsible for their legal use.
The US government imposed sanctions on Dilian in 2024 after it was found that the Predator was used against phones belonging to US officials and journalists. The sanctions make it effectively illegal for anyone to do business with Dilian and his other sanctioned business associates.
