IMPRISONMENT OF 'OUR' TAL DILIAN IN HAMOU AND TWO OTHERS FOR THE CYPRIOT SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL

 

IMPRISONMENT OF 'OUR' TAL DILIAN IN HAMOU AND TWO OTHERS FOR THE CYPRIOT SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL - Filenews 27/2 by Fanis Makridis

Important developments in the surveillance case with the Predator malware that was brought to Greek justice and interconnected through a series of revealing publications of "F" (2022-23) with the Cypriot surveillance scandal.

Specifically, the four defendants, i.e. the well-known businessman in Cyprus Tal Dilian, Sarah Hamou, Felix Bitzios and Giannis Lavranos were found guilty of three offenses, for which a prison sentence was imposed.

These are misdemeanors, which, however, led to a prison sentence of 126 years and 8 months, by a merger of 8 years, with full serving of the sentence and suspension until the hearing of the Appeal.

The aforementioned were convicted of (1) interference with a personal data archiving system, jointly, repeatedly, committed and attempted, (2) violation of the confidentiality of telephone communication and oral conversation, jointly, repeatedly, committed and attempted and (3) illegal access to an information system or data, jointly, repeatedly, committed and attempted.

The president of the court, Nikos Askianakis, reading the verdict, said, among other things: "It was proven that jointly and in co-decision they committed the attributed acts with common deceit and interfered with the mobile devices of the victims."

And the prosecutor, Dimitris Pavlidis, suggested that mitigating circumstances should not be given to any of the accused. Justifying the position, he said that "the size of the installation operation, the recruitment of unknown people, secret services, the clear knowledge of the illegal use of Predator, the abundance of companies and surrogates and that the company continued to operate in '23 and '24 with the obvious purpose of profit excludes any mitigating factor".

According to journalistic information obtained from Greece by Filenews, the court directly linked the espionage exercise to the company's relationship with Israel. In other words, by espionage in favour of Israel.

We remind you that Dilian is the founder of the Intellexa Group and concerned the Cypriot society about the Cyprus surveillance scandal. One of Ws Wispear's companies was sentenced by the Larnaca Criminal Court to a fine, since, contrary to Greek justice, it was not proven that surveillance had taken place on Cypriot soil.

Sarah Chamou, who is his alleged second wife, appeared to reside permanently in Limassol and had participation in corporate entities linked to Mr. Dilian. The Greek businessman, Felix Bitzios, was connected from the first moment with the case of surveillance in Greece and the companies connected to the Predator software. Similarly, Giannis Lavranos, who was linked to the case of telephone surveillance and technology companies and services to the State.

One of the central figures in the judicial process was one of the complainants, the Greek journalist, Thanasis Koukakis, who fell victim to the illegal actions. In his statements to Greek journalists after the end of the process, Koukakis expressed his satisfaction with the decision, talking about acts that resulted in "the rape of my private life".

It should also be noted that journalists Tasos Telloglou and Eliza Triantafyllou were among the witnesses. The two members of the journalistic family, with their investigative work and their continuous revealing publications on the investigative journalism blog Inside Story, put together the puzzle of the scandal that caused shock nationwide.

Telloglou and Triantafyllou in their long sworn testimonies gave details about the way the companies involved and the persons in the case operated.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Below we present a list of victims of illegal surveillance. These are people who held office when they were "targeted", according to the official information they had from the Personal Data Protection Authority.

The list: Makis Voridis (Minister of Interior),

Adonis Georgiadis (Minister of Development and Investments),

Kostis Hatzidakis (Minister of Labor)

Giorgos Gerapetritis, Minister of State,

Nikos Dendias (Minister of Foreign Affairs),

Vassilis Kikilias (Minister of Health),

Niki Kerameus (Minister of Education),

Michalis Chrysochoidis (Minister of Citizen Protection),

Yiannis Oikonomou (government spokesman),

Giorgos Mylonakis (Secretary General of the Parliament),

Anna Stratinaki Secretary General for Labour Relations/Ministry of Labour

Alexandra Sdoukou, Secretary General of Energy and Mineral Raw Materials at the Ministry of Environment and Energy,

Alexis Patelis (Chief Economic Advisor to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis)

Antonis Samaras (former Prime Minister),

Vasiliki Vlachou (Prosecutor of the National Intelligence Service, responsible for the lifting of the confidentiality of communications),

Christos Bardakis (Financial Prosecutor),

Thanos Plevris (Member of Parliament for New Democracy A' Athens and former Minister of Health)

Olga Kefalogianni (New Democracy MP)

Andreas Loverdos (PASOK MP),

Dimitris Avramopoulos, former New Democracy MP, former minister, former Commissioner of the European Union.