Eleni Touloupaki, Greece’s former head of the Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, who investigated the scandal involving Novartis pharma company, has asked the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE) to check whether her phone was bugged amid the “Greek Watergate” scandal.
The Novartis investigation in Greece was launched in mid-December 2016 with evidence of bribery of thousands of state officials and doctors for Novartis to get preferential treatment in the market.
Touloupaki was the top investigator of the Novartis case, but when the conservative New Democracy government took over, she was prosecuted by the Greek authorities.
In an interview with EURACTIV in May 2022, she described her prosecution as a “retaliation” against what, according to her, was a “disruption to the political-economic system of the country”.
All charges related to the Novartis investigation were ultimately dropped. Still, Touloupaki now suspects that she has also been a victim of a vast illegal surveillance project which has shaken Greek politics for months.
“We want to confirm if and in what period there was essentially illegal wiretapping of her two telephones by Greek secret services for alleged reasons of national security,” her lawyer Yiannis Matzouranis said in a statement.
“She can then appeal to the competent Greek and European courts and receive judicial protection, as defined by the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR),” Matzouranis added.
Touloupaki noticed that her phone calls often ended abruptly even though they were in areas with very good signal, as well as cases where a stranger interfered with her conversation with another person.
She added that she often could listen to her voice when having a phone call, while sometimes, after the end of a call, the person she was speaking with could listen to her next call.
Earlier this week, Greece’s privacy watchdog ADAE, an independent authority whose role is provided in the Constitution, decided to set up a special team to check the records of all telecommunication companies to see if Greek secret services have asked for the waiving of confidentiality of phone calls for specific people.
The decision came following a EURACTIV report which shook Greece’s political scene after it was found that another politician and journalist were under surveillance.
(Sarantis Michalopoulos | EURACTIV.com)
Source: euractiv.com
