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| Europe | |
| Reporter following trail of corruption in EU arrested | |
| 2004-03-21 | |
| Police arrested a leading investigative journalist yesterday on the orders of the European Union, seizing his computers, address books and archive of files in a move that stunned Euro-MPs stunned, huh? Guess they don’t read Rantburg Hans-Martin Tillack, the Brussels correspondent for Germany’s Stern magazine, said he was held for 10 hours without access to a lawyer by the Belgian police after his office and home were raided by six officers. on what basis? "They asked me to tell them who my sources were. I replied that was something I would never do. Now they have all my sensitive files, so I suppose they’ll find out anyway," he said last night. "The police said I was lucky I wasn’t in Burma or central Africa, where journalists get the real treatment," he added. nice....Euro thugs. Trained in Bobland? Mr Tillack said the raid was triggered by a complaint from the EU’s anti-fraud office, OLAF. He was accused of paying money to obtain a leaked OLAF dossier two years ago, which he denies. The European Ombudsman has already come to his defence, issuing a harsh criticism of OLAF’s campaign to silence him.
make that "had the greatest archive..." OLAF was created to replace the old fraud office UCLAF, which was accused of covering up abuses by the disgraced Santer Commission. Many UCLAF staff were transferred to OLAF. | |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #5 With the EU in place will there be another level of required bribes to get something done? It might be easier to do business in Kenya. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-3-21 9:34:08 PM |
| #4 Hans-Martin Tillack is an idiot if he did not have alternate stashes of data besides his home computer. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-3-21 9:02:36 PM |
| #3 Let me see if I have this straight. The anti-corruption agency is shutting this guy down for investigating corruption? Burlesconi and Chiraq have both gotten the laws changed so that they can't be proscecuted for corruption. Chirac's best pal's been convicted for using public funds for paying party hacks. I mean so what's the cut there? What are the payoffs? What percentage do the politocos get? The bureaucats? How hard is it for a Yankee to get a business license there? I think that I just discovered the business oportunity of a lifetime! |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2004-3-21 5:27:30 PM |
| #2 How's that new EU constitution coming along? Anything in there about freedom of speech or freedom of the press? Then how about the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures? If not, maybe it's because of a genetic defect of the Eeewws.:) |
| Posted by: GK 2004-3-21 10:28:16 AM |
| #1 "Infidel European bureaucrats! Adopt Sharia or we shall investigate your financial transactions. Allahu Akbar!" |
| Posted by: Matt 2004-3-21 10:24:29 AM |