Haaretz
A Greek court on Wednesday found four people guilty – among them a former senior Israeli intelligence officer – of wiretapping, invasion of privacy and unauthorized access to computer systems for breaching the confidentiality of telephone communications through the illegal deployment of spyware known as Predator, developed by Israelis.
This is the first criminal conviction of executives at a commercial spyware firm over the use of their surveillance technology by clients, exclusively state bodies such as intelligence organizations.
The Second Single-Member Misdemeanour Court of Athens – which tried the case as a misdemeanour after a separate official Greek state investigation into the alleged role of the country's intelligence service, the EYP, was closed without charges – handed down a combined sentence of 126 years and eight months.
Of that total, eight years are immediately enforceable under Greek sentencing laws. The sentences have been suspended pending appeal, and the defendants – none of whom appeared in court on Thursday – remain free.
Those convicted include Tal Dilian, a former commander of Israeli military intelligence's technology unit, Unit 81, who founded the Intellexa consortium of cyber and intelligence firms; his ex-wife and business partner, Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou; Felix Bitzios, a former deputy administrator and shareholder of Intellexa who is linked to top Greek officials; and Giannis Lavranos, owner of the Greek firm Krikel, through which Predator was allegedly procured and deployed in Greece.
Presiding Judge Nikos Askianakis said the evidence showed the defendants acted with "joint intent" to gain unauthorized access to "private communications and personal data," based on "witness testimonies but also documents that shed light on the truth."
The defendants were found guilty of intercepting the phone communications of Greek investigative journalist Thanasis Koukakis, Greek-American Meta employee Artemis Seaford and three other individuals. They were also convicted of 82 attempted interceptions. The independent Greek telecommunications privacy authority ADAE has previously confirmed that the spyware was deployed against more than 90 people, including cabinet ministers, senior military officials, opposition politicians, journalists and business leaders.
The verdict marks a rare instance of criminal accountability in the global spyware industry. Until now, legal efforts to hold surveillance technology firms responsible for the way their clients – usually state bodies such as intelligence organizations – use their products have taken place almost exclusively through civil litigation, most prominently in the United States, where NSO Group was ordered to pay damages to Meta over the hacking of WhatsApp users with Pegasus spyware. Apple filed a similar suit against NSO but dropped it in 2024. Similar decisions were also recently reached in Spain and Thailand.
But the Greek case is the first criminal prosecution of spyware company executives over the deployment of their product. The conviction of the supplier, however, comes in the absence of accountability for whoever commissioned the surveillance. The Greek government has acknowledged conducting lawful surveillance of opposition leader Nikos Androulakis through the EYP but has denied any connection to the illegal use of Predator. Critics argue that the case holds defense contractors accountable while the political actors who may have ordered the surveillance remain unidentified.
The so-called PredatorGate affair – widely dubbed "Greek Watergate" – erupted in 2022 when Koukakis discovered his phone had been hacked with Predator while investigating corruption in Greece. The scandal forced the resignation of the head of the EYP, as well as Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis' nephew and chief of staff, Grigoris Dimitriadis, who had been placed in charge of the intelligence service.
Some of the EYP's targets during that period were the same people whose phones were also infected with Predator, according to an expert's report included in court documents seen by Reuters, suggesting coordination between lawful state surveillance and the illegal spyware operation.
The Athens court ordered the trial records to be referred to investigative authorities to examine whether the convicted individuals committed additional crimes, including espionage, and whether other individuals were involved. The court also flagged potential perjury by witnesses who testified before a Greek parliamentary committee investigating the scandal.
Intellexa is part of a network of Israeli-founded offensive cyber firms that have drawn growing international scorn. Dilian built his surveillance empire in Cyprus and then Greece, operating outside the jurisdiction of Israel's Defense Ministry, which regulates the export of cyber weapons by firms based in Israel.
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The U.S. Commerce Department added Intellexa to its Entity List in July 2023 for trafficking in cyber exploits, and the Treasury Department imposed personal financial sanctions on Dilian and others, including Bitzios. On December 30, 2025, the Trump administration removed Hamou and two other individuals from the sanctions list. Dilian remains sanctioned.
Among those who testified in the case were Haaretz's media partners in Greece, Inside Story, which helped expose the firm's activity through joint investigations. A December 2025 investigation – together with Amnesty International and Swiss outlet Inside IT, based on leaked internal Intellexa documents – revealed new Predator victims in Pakistan and found evidence that Egypt and Saudi Arabia remained active clients despite the sanctions.
Dilian did not respond to this report. A legal representative for him told Haaretz in response to the December publication that Dilian "has not committed any crime nor operated any cyber system in Greece or anywhere else."
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