Brussels, 22/03/2004 (Agence Europe) - Thomas Osterkorn, editor in chief of German weekly Der Stern, has criticised the actions of the Belgian police, which carried out a search of the offices of its Brussels correspondent last Friday, by request of the Anti-Fraud Office of the European Union (Olaf), "on the pretext that Hans-Martin Tillack had paid an EU official in 2002 for information" (about a fraud case), according to a press release. The same press release states that Mr Tillack says that this is pure fabrication, and "in now way demonstrated" that he had paid for this information. The German journalist notes that the European Ombudsman, Nikiforos Diamandouros has already criticised Olaf for having made similar accusations with no proof. Jens-Peter Bonde, president of the Europe of Democracies and Differences group in the European Parliament, also complained in a press release about these attempts to "stop those who reveal fraud, rather than stopping the fraud".
Mr Tillack had uncovered the Eurostat scandal at the time, and more recently the case of the MEPs getting their colleagues to sign presence lists for them, in order to receive their pay without having to take part in the work of the European Parliament, and cases of MEPs employing members of their families. Last Friday Mr Tillack was interrogated for ten hours by the Belgian police, without being allowed to contact a lawyer, and his files were confiscated.