ANKARA

The Greek prime minister bears the political responsibility for the surveillance of politicians and journalists by the country's intelligence, according to the main opposition party on Tuesday.

Nasos Iliopoulos, the SYRIZA-PS spokesman, told the public broadcaster ERT radio, that during his speech on Monday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis admitted that they were lying about the issue all this time.

"We have a government that has lost all sense of democratic legitimacy,” he said, and added that the government should not be able to stay in power for another second.

Iliopoulos, in a reference to journalist Thanasis Koukakis, who was the first to denounce his surveillance, underpinned that the Greek public owes a lot to investigative journalism for uncovering the case of surveillance.

Yiannis Mantzouranis, jurist and member of the SYRIZA’s executive committee asserted that the prime minister appeared irresponsible and incompetent, instead of accepting his guilt in the scandal, according to the daily Avgi.

"Who instructed his closest to lie by denying the irrefutable? What exactly is going on with the Predator spyware? How many others were put under surveillance?

“Would you, after all this, trust him, not as prime minister, but even as your insurer?” asked Mantzouranis.

Meanwhile, Periklis Kourmoulis, a senior executive of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), said the party is not optimistic that things will change, given the surveillance scandal.

He warned that a dark and dangerous setting that has been formed over the years and makes everyone a potential target for surveillance,

In a statement, Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou noted the privacy of communication, saying: "The protection of the privacy of communication is a fundamental condition of a democratic and liberal society.”

The exception to this, she said, is provided by the constitution for the reasons related to national security.

Sakellaropoulou, however, warned that "it must, however, be interpreted narrowly and its application must be in accordance with the principles of the rule of law and proportionality.”

Surveillance scandal

In a televised address to the nation, Mitsotakis acknowledged that Nikos Androulakis, leader of the socialist PASOK party, was wiretapped by the state's intelligence agency, but denied he knew about the surveillance.

“Although everything was done legally, the National Intelligence Service (EYP) underestimated the political dimension of this action. It was formally okay, but politically unacceptable,” Mitsotakis claimed.

The announcement followed the resignation of EYP head Andreas Kontoleon and the prime minister's General Secretary Grigoris Dimitriadis on Friday.

The scandal erupted last week when Kontoleon told a parliamentary committee that his agency had been spying on Koukakis.

The parliamentary probe was launched after Androulakis complained to top prosecutors about an attempt to hack his cellphone with Israeli-made Predator tracking software.