Tillack setback

29 October 2006

To the surprise of no-one, German reporter Hans-Martin Tillack has lost his latest court case (4 October) alleging victimisation by Brussels institutions after he exposed fraud at the EU's Eurostat agency, writes Stephen Gardner.  Tillack went to the EU Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, after Belgian police raided his home in March 2004, detaining him and confiscating several years' worth of files. The police staged the raid after a tip-off from EU anti-fraud office, OLAF.  The supposed fraud-busters told the Belgians that Tillack bribed officials to obtain documents about the 'vast enterprise of looting' (OLAF's own words!) at Eurostat. Since then, Tillack, whose career has been blighted, to whom sources will no longer talk, and who still hasn't got his files back, has fallen into a black hole between the institutions.  OLAF, who stitched him up in the first place, says the police raid was nothing to do with them – they merely passed information to Belgium's Inspector Knacker.  In the latest judgment, the Court agreed, saying OLAF had “formulated in a hypothetical way” its allegations, and they had no binding effect.  Therefore OLAF's forwarding of the information cannot be annulled and Tillack cannot have any damages. The European Ombudsman, meanwhile, has supported Tillack, and accused OLAF of making “misleading statements” about the case.  Prompted by the Ombudsman, OLAF admitted it had no proof for the bribery claims – they were merely rumours circulated by European Commission officials. But that was nearly a year and a half ago.  The Ombudsman forwarded a report on the affair to the European Parliament – the ultimate recourse – who promptly decided to sit on it pending another court case. This will see Tillack take Belgium to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg over the police raid.  The European Federation of Journalists is confident Tillack will ultimately win and some redress against the “very arrogant” OLAF will be achieved.  Just don't expect it anytime soon. A version of this article originally appeared in Private Eye.

 

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