EU Parliament probes a Latvian lawmaker after media allegations that she spied for Russia

By LORNE COOK and JARI TANNER
Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Parliament has opened an investigation into news reports that a Latvian member of the assembly, Tatjana Ždanoka, has been working as a Russian agent for several years. In a statement, the office of the president of the parliament, Roberta Metsola, says she “takes these allegations very seriously.” Metsola has asked a parliamentary committee that handles the code of conduct for EU lawmakers to handle the case. Russian, Nordic and Baltic news sites have reported that Ždanoka has been an agent for the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, since at least 2004.