Spiegel to file criminal complaint against cheating reporter

BERLIN: Influential German news weekly Der Spiegel said Sunday it would file a criminal complaint against a disgraced reporter after it emerged he may have embezzled donations intended for Syrian street children.

Claas Relotius, 33, resigned this month after admitting to making up stories and inventing protagonists in more than a dozen articles in the magazine´s print and online editions. Spiegel said it now had information that Relotius allegedly launched a campaign for readers to give money to help subjects of an article he wrote but that the bank details he gave directed the funds to his own account.

"Der Spiegel will give all the information it collects to public prosecutors as part of a criminal complaint," it said on its website. Spiegel said concerned readers had in recent days reported Relotius´s call for donations purportedly for orphaned Syrian children living on the streets of Turkey.