we cannot reveal details to the interest of further procedures

[GoodTaste]

It seems to me that the phrase "to the interest of further procedures" means "in order to accomplish further procedures."

But if so, the usual phrase is "in the interest of..." rather than "to the intersest of..." Why use "to" here? Because it is collocated with "reveal"? I am not sure.

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Melania Trump sculpture in Slovenia set on fire on the Fourth of July
...................
Police spokeswoman Alenka Drenik told Reuters that the investigation is ongoing, "so we cannot reveal details to the interest of further procedures."


Source: CBS News July 9, 2020
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/melania-trump-statue-set-fire-slovenia-july-fourth/

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Yes, that's more or less what it means. If she were to provide details, it might harm their progress or create a problem in court.

Police spokespeople are notorious for using convoluted sentences and too-big words.

 

[GoesStation]

It's either a poor translation or the quoted person was speaking imperfect English. It's hard to guess precisely what she meant, but it's presumably something like "so we can't reveal further details which might prejudice the investigation. "

 

[Skrej]

I agree. I think this was simply an error in preposition choice. It would make perfect sense if it said " we cannot reveal details IN the interest of further procedures".

However, I also think a better translation of "further procedures" would have been something like "ongoing investigation", but at least it's still understandable.

It's a pretty standard disclaimer for a police spokesperson to state that they can't reveal more details because the investigation is still underway.

 

[tedmc]

"Investigation was ongoing" was said in the preceding sentence. I think "procedure" was used to avoid repeating the word "investigation" though the former is not a good choice of word. What about "so we cannot reveal further details for court/legal/procedural reasons"?

 

[emsr2d2]

It's not clear from the piece whether Ms Drenik spoke in English (she's not a native speaker) or if what she said in Slovenian has been translated to be used in the piece. If it's the former, it's understandable that she might make a mistake when speaking a foreign language. If it's the latter, the fault lies with the translator/interpreter.