Μake us preferred on Google Four years after the storm of reactions triggered by the revelation of the wiretapping scandal, which continues to weigh heavily on political life amid strong criticism over institutional issues, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court has once again ruled that no further investigation is required, rejecting requests for the case file to be retrieved from the archives.
Supreme Court prosecutor Evangelos Bakelas, who undertook the examination and assessment of the requests — four in total — reached a negative decision on any further investigation, citing legal grounds.
“Legal acrobatics” and “pretexts”
The legal grounds cited by the Supreme Court prosecutor were criticized by lawyer Zacharias Kesses, who had submitted two of the four requests to retrieve the case file, as “interpretive acrobatics that depart from the purpose of the law and are used as a pretext to avoid any substantive examination of the new evidence.”
The senior prosecutor issued four separate decisions, one for each request, explaining his position against retrieving the case file on separate grounds in each instance. He noted that his decision was “for the time being”, leaving open the possibility that it could be changed in the future if new evidence emerges.
Prosecutor Bakelas’ decision concerning requests submitted by former prime minister Antonis Samaras and former minister Christos Spirtzis was based on the view that no new evidence had been presented to justify further investigation.
In the case of Samaras’ request, which carried particular weight given his status as a former prime minister and in which he sought “the full clarification of his targeting”, the Supreme Court prosecutor ruled that no new evidence had been presented to justify reopening the case, as the wiretapping allegations had already been investigated and archived twice.
The first was by a decision of now-retired deputy Supreme Court prosecutor Achilleas Zisis, and later by a decision of Supreme Court prosecutor K. Tzavellas, who retired more than a month ago after reaching the statutory age limit.
The prosecutor’s reasoning
On the same grounds — that no new evidence had been submitted to justify retrieving the wiretapping case file from the archives — the Supreme Court prosecutor also rejected the request by former SYRIZA government minister Christos Spirtzis.
Following the trial and the heavy convictions of four private individuals in connection with the wiretapping case, Spirtzis requested a new investigation based on the convictions. He submitted electronic messages from his mobile phone to the Supreme Court Prosecutor’s Office, including one marked “confidential”.
According to the Supreme Court prosecutor, however, those materials had already been examined during the trial of the four defendants and could not be considered new evidence warranting the retrieval of the case file.
While the prosecutor’s reasoning regarding the Samaras and Spirtzis requests rests on the view that no new evidence was submitted, the reasoning concerning the requests filed by lawyer Zacharias Kesses, representing people who were monitored, is entirely different.
It is based on legal grounds: namely, that neither the four people convicted by the court and sentenced to heavy penalties totalling 126 years for the wiretapping offences, nor five other people involved in the surveillance case can be examined as witnesses.
What are the legal grounds invoked by the Supreme Court prosecutor, which lawyer Zacharias Kesses has criticised as “legal acrobatics” aimed at preventing an examination of the substance of the case?
According to the Supreme Court prosecutor, Tal Dilian, one of the four convicted defendants, as well as the other three, cannot be examined as witnesses because they are themselves involved in the case and their testimony, if given, could not be taken into account under criminal law.
It is worth noting that Dilian has publicly disclosed, including in an interview with Greek broadcaster MEGA, that he sold the Predator spyware to state entities, namely government agencies. The other three convicted defendants have made no public statements since their convictions.
Dilian made his public disclosures after his conviction. He did not attend the trial or give a statement in his defence.
Trial in December
However, following what is effectively the third filing of the case — or, more precisely, the third refusal to retrieve the case file from the archives — the wiretapping affair is not necessarily over, legal sources say.
The main reason is that the four private defendants are due to stand trial before an appeals court next December, while the possibility of further revelations cannot be ruled out.
It is therefore significant that, in all four decisions refusing to retrieve the case file, the Supreme Court prosecutor noted that his decision applied “for the time being”, leaving open the possibility of new evidence emerging in the future.
Meanwhile, sources at the Supreme Court had for days indicated that the prosecutor was expected to reject the Samaras and Spirtzis requests specifically on the grounds that no new evidence had been submitted.
The same sources said the timing chosen to announce the prosecutorial decision was linked to the way the announcement was being handled from a communications perspective.
By Ioanna Mandrou
