Cyprus not concerned about fallout of Greek phone tap scandal

CYPRUS is not concerned about any possible local implications to the phone-tapping revelations in Greece, Government Spokesman George Lillikas said yesterday.

He said there were no plans to conduct a special investigation into the situation in Cyprus, beyond what was already done on a routine basis.

On Thursday, it emerged that unknown eavesdroppers tapped the mobile phones of Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, five cabinet members and dozens of top officials for about a year.

Illegal software installed at Greece’s second biggest mobile phone operator, Vodafone Greece, allowed calls to and from about 100 phones to be recorded. Most belonged to the government, but one was owned by the US embassy in Athens.

The phones tapped included the prime minister’s, the whole leadership of the defence ministry and the whole leadership of the public order ministry, some foreign ministry phones, one former minister, now in opposition, and others.

Lillikas said there were already controls in Cyprus concerning these issues and that all the necessary measures were being taken to protect the privacy of citizens, including politicians.

However, Lillikas said that large countries in particular have the capability to intervene in the telecommunications system of others. “I would not say that there exists a particular reason for concern in relation to Cyprus,” he said.
“Of course, we have to be careful because the data and the technology does exist.”

Asked whether President Tassos Papadopoulos used a mobile phone, Lillikas said when he needed to he did but it was a secure line, he added.

Answering another question as to whether calls between Papadopoulos and the Greek leadership on the Cyprus problem and even during the Burgenstock talks in 2004 might have been overheard due to the phone tapping in Greece, Lillikas said: “The office of the Greek Prime Minister and the President of the Republic both have high-tech safety systems for telephone use between the two governments.”

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.