It has become known as Greece's Watergate: spyware software and Greek intelligence targeted the mobile phones of government ministers, senior military officers, judges, and journalists.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called it a scandal, but no government officials have been charged in court and critics accuse the government of trying to cover up the truth.

Instead, a low-ranking judge will on Wednesday hear the case against two Israelis and two Greeks, allegedly involved with marketing spy software known as Predator.

What we know

In the summer of 2022, the current head of the socialist party Pasok, Nikos Androulakis, was informed by the EU Parliament's IT experts that he had received a malicious text message from an unknown sender, containing spy software.

This Predator spyware, which is marketed by the Athens-based Israeli company Intellexa, can access a device's messages, camera, and microphone – turning a person's phone against them.

Things escalated after Androulakis also discovered that he had been tracked for national security reasons by Greece's National Intelligence Service (EYP).

Just a month after taking office in the summer of 2019, PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis had placed EYP directly under his supervision.

His conservative government was suddenly at the heart of the crisis, leading to the resignation of EYP head Panagiotis Kontoleon and PM's top aide Grigoris Dimitriadis.

Predator had been used in attempts to entrap at least 87 people, according to the Hellenic Data Protection Authority.

Despite criticism that the targeting implied a common strategy of surveillance, the government insisted it was coincidence and denied any law enforcement agency had used Predator.

Was the government involved?

After the scandal broke, the Greek government introduced a new law on the confidentiality of communications which many critics argue undermines citizen's rights regarding surveillance.

Calls for transparency have grown louder, particularly after officials raided Intellexa’s offices without achieving any tangible results.

The scandal continues to provoke debate on governmental oversight and the protection of citizen rights within Greece's political landscape.