Vodafone: Overseas Involvement Likely In Greek PM Wiretap

ATHENS (AP)--A senior official from the mobile telephone operator Vodafone said Thursday he suspected overseas involvement in the wiretapping of Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis and top officials during the Athens Olympics two years ago.

"There must be an organization behind this that combines technology and financing," Giorgos Koronias, Vodafone CEO in Greece told the parliamentary committee investigating the wiretaps.

"It was not just hackers, this is something bigger," Koronias said Thursday. "Such know-how does not exist in Greece."

Around 100 Vodafone subscribers were under surveillance from just before the August 2004 Games for almost a year, according to the government, which published the list last month.

The revelations have embarrassed Caramanlis' conservative government, which spent more than $1 billion on security for the games.

The wiretaps targeted Caramanlis, senior ministers, and top military and police officers. Human rights activists, journalists and Arab businessmen in Greece were reportedly on the list.

Koronias said the eavesdroppers "may have better technical know-how" than Ericsson, the Swedish telecoms equipment maker which manufactured Vodafone's digital centers in Greece.

He shrugged off any responsibility for his company: "Vodafone carried out no eavesdropping."

The perpetrators secretly installed a program in three Vodafone centers, which hijacked the centers to divert calls to mobile phones using elusive pay-as-you-go services.

These phones had been used in a central Athens area where the U.S. embassy is located, the government has claimed. But it has said it doesn't suspect U.S. officials.

A report issued Wednesday by the Greek agency for the security of communications said the software may have been designed outside Greece because it was made to eavesdrop on various types of phone systems and included functions that are "not used by Greek companies."

Koronias also said it was "unlikely" a high-placed Vodafone employee who apparently committed suicide in March 2005 could have discovered the tapping.

Koronias alerted the government in March 2005, but the scandal was kept secret until last month pending a preliminary investigation. A criminal investigation is now underway.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires"

Posted to the site on 9th March 2006