BRUSSELS: Investigators on Wednesday (May 29) raided the home and offices of an EU parliamentary staffer as Belgium probes claims that Russia paid far-right lawmakers – including Germany’s embattled Maximilian Krah – to spread Kremlin propaganda.
The searches in Brussels and in Strasbourg, eastern France, were the latest step in a snowballing set of investigations into the meddling claims, which have sparked jitters ahead of EU-wide elections for the bloc’s parliament on Jun 6-9.
A source close to the inquiry said the target was Guillaume Pradoura, a former assistant to Krah of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, who is himself being investigated for suspected ties to both Russia and China.
The Belgian state prosecutor’s office said searches were being conducted at a staffer’s home in Schaerbeek, northeast Brussels, and at his offices in EU parliamentary buildings in both Brussels and Strasbourg, with cooperation from French authorities.
In a statement, it said the “searches are part of a case of interference, passive corruption and membership of a criminal organisation”.
It “relates to indications of Russian interference, whereby members of the European Parliament were approached and paid to promote Russian propaganda via the Voice of Europe ‘news website’,” the prosecutor’s office said.
“There are indications that the European Parliament employee concerned played a significant role in this,” it added.
A spokesperson for Krah told AFP the staffer involved had not been on the lawmaker’s team for “two years”.
“We assume that we are not affected,” the spokesperson added.
According to the source close to the Belgian investigation, the probe is more focused on the staffer’s former employer than his present one.
Pradoura, who was expelled from France’s National Rally five years ago over an anti-Semitic photograph, now works for the Dutch far-right lawmaker Marcel de Graaff.
Discussion about this post