Der Spiegel to file charges against disgraced ex-reporter over embezzlement

Germany’s leading news weekly Der Spiegel is set to press embezzlement charges against a former reporter earlier accused of systematically faking stories for launching a phony donation campaign under the pretext of helping Syrian refugee children.

The magazine reported on its German language website on Saturday that it will file a criminal complaint against Claas Relotius, who was forced to resign after it emerged that he had fabricated many of his articles and interviews, invented characters, sources, and their quotes “on a grand scale” over several years.

The award-winning journalist “made up stories and invented protagonists” in at least 14 out of the 60 articles that appeared in the weekly's print and online editions, said Der Spiegel on Wednesday.

The publication has now said it received information from its readers that the 33-year-old journalist had used a private email account to ask for donations for two Syrian refugee “siblings” in Turkey.

The donations, it quoted readers as saying, had to be sent to his personal bank account.

Relotius’ story said the parents of the two children had lost their lives amid violence in Syria, and that the two were struggling to support themselves through menial labor in Turkey.

Der Spiegel, however, cited a Turkish photographer who briefly accompanied Relotius on the assignment as saying that the journalist falsified parts of the boy’s biography, falsely claiming that the boy’s mother was dead.

It said one of the two characters, whom the journalist wrote worked 14-hour per day in a sweatshop, may not exist at all.

“The fate of two Syrian children described in Relotius’ story ‘King’s children’ so moved readers that they wanted to donate to them,” Spiegel editors wrote on the magazine’s website. However, it became clear that “he collected the readers’ money under false pretenses, which he apparently has not, as promised, passed on,” the editors continued.

Der Spiegel, however, said it had not been aware of the campaign, and that it is not yet clear how much money was raised from the appeal or where it ended up.

Relotius has yet to comment on the embezzlement charges.

US envoy wades into scandal

The developments prompted an attack against the magazine from US Ambassador to Berlin Richard Grenell, who used the scandal to accuse Der Spiegel of reporting “blatant anti-Americanism” in “seven years of unchecked writing.”

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“As it stands, we do not have faith in Spiegel’s current fact-checking and editing process,” he wrote, adding that “the anti-American bias at the magazine has exploded since the election of President [Donald] Trump,” in January last year.

Grenell, an outspoken advocate of Trump’s policies, further said the editors and the leadership share responsibility for the fabricated stories since they “clearly allowed this atmosphere and bias to flourish.”

The magazine had apologized for the scandal in an open letter on Saturday, describing it as “a low point in the 70-year history of Der Spiegel.”

It, however, rejected the accusations of being biased.

“When we criticize the American president, this does not amount to anti-American bias — it is criticism of the policies of the man currently in office in the White House,” wrote Der Spiegel’s deputy editor-in-chief Dirk Kurbjuweit.

“Anti-Americanism is deeply alien to me and I am absolutely aware of what Germany has the US to thank for: a whole lot,” he wrote.

The magazine published a graphic cartoon of the newly-elected president of America on its cover in February 2017, showing Trump beheading the Statue of Liberty with a bloody knife.

The cartoon, which appeared alongside the headline “America First”— referring to Trump’s campaign slogan — was implying a comparison between the US president and the Daesh terrorist group.

“Both sides are extremists, so I’m just making a comparison between them,” said Edel Rodriguez, who designed the cover back then.

The cartoon is currently the banner image on Der Spiegel’s Twitter and Facebook pages.

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