A magistrate has ordered the investigations into the alleged assassination threat against former prime minister Kostas Karamanlis and the wire-tapping scandal against his government be combined into a single probe, the news site ENet reported.
Dimitris Foukas said there were common links between the cases, and that wire tapping scandal – which came to light in 2005 – continued until 2007, when the Karamanlis government was negotiating the South Stream pipeline project to bring Russian natural gas to Europe.
In early 2009, shortly before Karamanlis unexpectedly called national elections, the Russian Federal Security Service tipped off Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP) that then prime minister’s life was threatened.
The Greek wiretapping case of 2004-2005 involved the illegal tapping of more than 100 mobile phones on the Vodafone Greece network belonging mostly to members of the government and top-ranking civil servants.
The taps began sometime near the beginning of August 2004 and were removed in March 2005. A criminal case against “persons unknown” was opened last March but is yet to reveal significant progress.
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