Warrant Issued for Former US Embassy Employee on Greek Wiretapping Scandal

An arrest warrant was issued earlier today by anti-corruption investigator Dimitris Foukas against an American former employee of the United States Embassy in Athens. The US citizen, identified as William B., is facing charges of felony espionage as he was allegedly involved in the Greek wiretapping scandal that shocked Greece in 2004 and 2005. According to Greek media, the former US Embassy employee was an operational member of a CIA team based in Athens from the mid 1990s.

Reportedly, the investigator issued the arrest warrant after crosschecking that in June 2004 this person bought four mobile devices from Piraeus, three of which were used as “prepaid mobile phone-shadows” in the case of telephone tapping.

The Greek authorities proceeded with a phone secrecy declassification, after which it was proved that one of the phone connections was activated in a different device subscribed under the address of Athens’ US Embassy in Vasilissis Sofias Avenue 91. According to Greek media, the accused person fled Greece straight after the case was revealed, although he returned to the country in August 2005 as the US Embassy first secretary. As the investigation proved, the devices were purchased by his wife, who was later recognized by the store manager.

At the same time, the defendant appeared to be cooperating with the Greek intelligence services primarily in counter-terrorism matters and he participated in an operation code-named “Net,” which aimed at the removal of a large quantity of explosives found in the Iraqi Embassy in 2003. Finally, the Greek authorities are investigating his possible involvement in the code-named “Pythia” project, which allegedly aimed at the Former Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis’ assassination.