Free Republic

Euro-MPs expressed outrage yesterday over the treatment of an EU official driven from her job for exposing widespread fraud at the European Commission's Eurostat data office. So far, no Eurostat official has been punished for the diversion of £3m of taxpayer funds into illegal accounts over three years ago in a scam described as a "vast enterprise of looting" by investigators. All the accused - mostly French officials - are still working for the EU or have retired with full pensions. But the EU accountant who helped uncover the Eurostat abuses, Dorte Schmidt-Brown, fled home to Denmark after being subjected...

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Hans-Martin Tillack, Stern magazine's former Brussels correspondent, is taking Belgium to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The German journalist is seeking the return of some 1,000 pages of documents that were seized by Belgian police in March 2004. Officers raided Mr Tillack's home on the wishes of the European Commission's anti-fraud watchdog, OLAF. The fraud body alleged that Mr Tillack may have bribed an EU official to get secret information. But no formal charge has been brought against him to date. Mr Tillack has tried to retrieve his documents via the Belgian legal system,...