EU Parliament demands Europol probe illegal use of spyware against politicians, journalists

By Agnes Szuc

BRUSSELS (AA) - The EU Parliament’s special committee against illegal surveillance requested the bloc’s police agency to launch investigations on state use of spyware against citizens in four EU states, including Greece because the concerned authorities are reluctant to act.

Jeroen Lenaers, the chair of the European Parliament’s Committee of Inquiry to investigate the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware (PEGA) sent a letter to the executive director of Europol, demanding the agency use its new mandate to help their work.

The letter, dated Sept. 28. and published by the PEGA committee on Monday, explains that “there has been a string of revelations about the illegitimate use of spyware,” targeting among others “journalists, politicians, NGOs, public officials in Hungary, Poland, Spain, Greece, and the European Commission.”

However, “with every day passes, the risk of evidence disappearing or being destroyed, increases” and “there are concerns about the capacity and willingness of national authorities to investigate swiftly and thoroughly,” Lenaers added.

He invites Europol to issue “a proposal for an investigation to the Member States concerned,” based on a recent regulation that allows the agency to initiate probes on crimes that “affect common EU interest.”

According to PEGA, acts of computer crime, corruption, racketeering, and extortion that have been reported with the spyware cases fall within Europol’s mandate.

The EP Committee has been investigating the misuse of surveillance software by Hungary, Poland, Spain, and Greece.

The latest surveillance scandal has directly involved the European Parliament because it broke out following the complaint by Nikos Androulakis, an EU lawmaker and leader of the biggest Greek opposition party, PASOK.

Androulakis turned in July to the Greek prosecutor after he was notified by the EP’s cybersecurity experts that Predator malware was detected on his phone.

In August, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis acknowledged that Androulakis was wiretapped but denied he knew about the surveillance.

In his testimony to the EP’s plenary session dedicated to the Greek wiretapping scandal, Androulakis claimed last month that his files at the Greek intelligence service were destroyed the day he lodged his complaint.