The observations and what the Commission of Inquiry said – especially during its meeting on Thursday – the former commander of the National Intelligence Service Panagiotis Kontoleon, took the interview of the Minister of State Giorgos Herapetritison the SKAI radio station.

Asked to comment on today’s headlines and, in particular, some of their references to him, the Minister of State stated in his opening remarks: “The answer is one and unequivocal: herapetritis he didn’t know either contoleon he didn’t say any of that.”

Annoyed, as he mentioned, “double and heavy obscenity by some”, explained two reasons for this: “Firstly, we have a secret meeting from which no insider information is supposed to be leaked. This was taken advantage of by those who claimed a plan of slander, as there could be no disclosure of what was said.” And, secondly, “here a was said and -a was written for political reasons, we are talking about such a case of copper.”

To the explanation that from the moment everything became public – obscenities, as the Minister of State described them – for reasons of his own defense, he replies: P. Contoleon was directly asked if G. Gerapetritis knew anything about these cases. connections and “His answer was that he didn’t know anything at all. Mr. Contoleon made it clear that Mr. Gerapetritis and I had several discussions on legislative initiatives concerning EEM.”

He went on to note that as he talks “to all the ministers and agencies on legislative planning issues, I also spoke to Mr. Contoleon several times.” So while Mr. Contoleon said the minister was unaware of the legal connections, “the opposition concluded that he knew about the surveillance.”

With an accent, he also emphasized that “Mr. Contoleon asked specifically about me: “Did Herapetritis know about the connections?” And his answer was “never and never”. He gave such a categorical answer, compare it with the headlines.”

Continuing, he repeated:It wasn’t my responsibility to know, information about who is under surveillance does not reach here.. What is recorded by surveillance is only the content of the conversation if there is a national security issue.

Especially for tapping the phone of the president of PASOK-Movement for Change: “I, following the order of the Prime Minister, called Mr. Androulakis notify him that legal surveillance is underway and refer him to the commander.”

At the same time, elsewhere in the interview, he stated: “I fully understand the situation of Mr. Androulakis and If I were him, I would like to know exactly whyand from the first day, the responsible person par excellence, the commander of the ENP […] case closed like this: for Mr. Androulakis to be briefed and then assess himself“.

In addition, he continued, “I fully understand Mr. Androulakis’ anger, it’s a problem when a leader suffers this kind of suffering.” In any case, “all illegal non-government software is a problem, it’s a global problem.” And in “therefore” “we work hard, we listen to the opposition and we will also listen to the proposals of the Commission of Inquiry in order to create a rational, effective basis.”

To the question about monitoring his messages Stergio Picciorla, specifying that he knew nothing about the matter other than what he read, he remarked that from his own statements (former Minister of the Government of SYRIZA) “it follows that there was a legal connection of Mr. Picciorla, at the time that was President TAIPED and Deputy Minister in the previous government. Clearly there is a major political issue being raised which is about the speech, but mostly about the denial by the leader of the official opposition in parliament that politicians were not monitored during his rule.”

When asked whether the present Examination Board could also take up the Pitsiorla case, he replied that “the order of the commission of inquiry is very specific and concerns the monitoring of Mr. Androulakis’ mobile phone. It can only be extended at the request of the Commission. My feeling is that we should remain in this monitoring, I do not rule out that at some other time there will be a wider investigation,” he pointedly concluded.

“What is valuable” is a statement of years of pathologies, he stressed.

Per illegal softwareFinally, he concluded by saying: “The Prime Minister said this, I repeated this in Parliament on Monday and Tuesday, we intend to be much stricter than any European framework in the legislative initiative that we will introduce in the next few months. Even by achieving a universal ban on the sale of such malicious software, which may be at the disposal of individuals or even states, not necessarily the most democratic.

RES – OIE