Police raid European parliament staffer’s office in Russian influence probe
Guillaume Pradoura accused of playing ‘significant role’ in Voice of Europe scandal
Belgian and French authorities have raided the offices of a European parliament staffer on suspicion of working for Russia, the latest in a series of scandals involving far-right lawmakers and their alleged ties to foreign governments.
Police on Wednesday raided the apartment and parliamentary offices in Brussels and Strasbourg of Guillaume Pradoura, an assistant for a Dutch far-right MEP. Pradoura, a French national, is being investigated in connection with an alleged Russian influence operation run via the Prague-based Voice of Europe website, which has been banned from broadcasting in the EU.
“The searches are part of a case of interference, passive corruption and membership of a criminal organisation and 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 Belgian prosecutor’s office said. The assistant “played a significant role in this”, it added.
Dutch MEP Marcel de Graaff posted on X that the investigation into his staffer Pradoura was a “complete surprise”.
“I spoke to my employee and he appeared not to be aware of this,” de Graaff said. “The authorities have not contacted me or him. To me this all comes as a complete surprise.”
Before working for de Graaff, Pradoura was a parliamentary assistant for Maximilian Krah, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) lead candidate in European parliament elections next month. Krah’s own staffer, Jian Guo, was arrested last month on suspicion of spying for Beijing. Both Krah and Guo deny the allegations.
Krah has suspended his campaigning following public uproar after comments he made in an interview with the Financial Times about not all SS members having been criminals.
Pradoura has also worked for France’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN), which expelled him in 2019 over an antisemitic social media post.
Pradoura did not respond to a request for comment.
De Graaff said he had “no involvement whatsoever in any so-called Russian disinformation operation. I have my own political beliefs and I proclaim them. That is my job as an MEP.”
De Graaf has made multiple pro-Russia statements, including after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which prompted the far right Identity and Democracy group to expel him in October 2022.
The ID group, which is led by Marine Le Pen’s RN, said at the time that it condemned Russia’s war and that with “statements like ‘Go, Putin’, and a number of similarly outrageous tweets, Mr De Graaff can in no way represent the ID group”.
De Graaff has continued making similar remarks. In a speech in March, he alleged that Kyiv was carrying out war crimes and supplying children to paedophile networks.
Czech authorities earlier this year banned Voice of Europe and imposed sanctions on pro-Kremlin Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, who they said was running the operation and using the website to pay politicians to peddle pro-Russian propaganda ahead of the EU elections.
Medvedchuk lives in Moscow after having been swapped for Ukrainian war prisoners. He has not commented on the allegations. Voice of Europe has denied being a Russian propaganda outlet.
Several other European countries including France, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Belgium have also opened investigations.
The raids on Thursday constitute the first searches being carried out in Belgium in this case.
A spokesperson for the European parliament said it “fully co-operates with law enforcement and judicial authorities to assist the course of justice and will continue to do so”.