Hans-Martin Tillack

Hans -Martin Tillack (* 1961 in Königs Wusterhausen ) is a German investigative journalist. He revealed a series of political scandals in Germany and was also known for his work as EU correspondent in Brussels.

Life

Hans -Martin Tillack worked after his studies in sociology and political science in Marburg and Berlin since 1988 as editor of the daily newspaper in Berlin and later in Bonn. Since 1993 he has been editor of Stern magazine, first as a correspondent in Bonn, then from 1999 to 2004 in Brussels and since 2005 as a reporter in Berlin.

Services

In 2001, he revealed the so-called " partner " affair, which was administered by the then Labour Minister Walter Riester (SPD). Since 2002, Tillack made ​​public in a series of articles in the Star and on stern.de financial irregularities in the EU statistics office Eurostat. The Eurostat scandal led in 2003 to the transfer of the Director General and all the Directors of the Bureau of Statistics.

2005 Tillack covered the scandal surrounding the sideline of the former Minister of State Ludger Volmer ( Green ) for the Bundesdrukerei on, which contributed to the then debate about the visa affair. In a detailed article in 2005 Tillack rose for the first time the suspicion that at Siemens bribery practices were widespread.

He made the end of 2006 the previously unknown case of the Germany-based U.S. Rendition victim Abdel- Halim Khafagy public. 2007 succeeded Tillack, to obtain the name of the private sponsors of the federal ministries, citing the Freedom of Information Act. The report led to the federal government now officially released the names of the grantors. Since 2009, Tillack published a series of articles about the bank bailout policy of the Federal Government and revealed several questionable payments to managers of Hypo Real Estate, and in 2011 the calculation error at HRE and its bad bank, FMS value management, over 55.5 billion euros.

In February 2010, Tillack unveiled along with John Roehrig the spying affair of the Berlin agency CMK, who worked for the Bunte. Of Colorful succeeded in 2011, however, enforce in court that the star should not give the impression Colorful editors were aware of questionable methods.

Conflicts with authorities

In March 2004, the Belgian police raided Tillack's home and the Brussels office of asterisk. The police confiscated this extensive documentation. Tillack had repeatedly cited internal documents of the Office in critical reports on the EU anti-fraud office, OLAF. The Belgian investigating judge opened - at the request of OLAF - an investigation against persons unknown for a possible corruption offense. Lawsuits by Tillack - including the European Court of First Instance - which he lodged at the Belgian search action following were initially turned away. Finally, in November 2007 ended Tillack's action before the European Court of Human Rights with the condemnation of Belgium to pay 10,000 euros in damages for breach of press freedom. The investigation was set in 2009. The search operation sparked a debate on press freedom in the EU; many journalists considered this approach as a restriction of freedom of reporting. The European Ombudsman criticized OLAF concerning the matter in a special report to the European Parliament.

In December 2006 it was announced that the Munich prosecutor had intercepted phone calls from Tillack and another Star editor who had done this with the lawyer of the CIA kidnap victim Khaled el- Masri.

Triggered by the authorization of the Bundestag President Norbert Lammert (CDU ) determined the Hamburg public prosecutor in 2007 temporarily against Tillack and two other star - editors on suspicion of aiding and abetting secret betrayals, in connection with articles about the BND investigation committee of the Bundestag.

Awards

  • 2004 Frode Jakobsen - Prize of the Danish June Movement
  • 2005 Leipzig Media Award

Works

  • Hans -Martin Tillack: The corrupt Republic: About the lucrative wheeling and dealing of politics, bureaucracy and business. Hoffmann and Campe, 2009, ISBN 978-3-455-50109-4.
  • Hans -Martin Tillack: From Brussels to Burma. In: David Dadge (ed.): Silenced - International Journalists expose Media Censorship. Prometheus Books, 2005, ISBN 1-59102-305- X.
  • Andreas Oldag, Hans -Martin Tillack: Spaceship Brussels. How to democracy in Europe fails. Argon, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-87024-578-6.
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