Four other arrests had already taken place in Brussels in the morning in this same case.
A Greek vice-president and an ex-Italian MEP arrested: the European Parliament is splashed by suspicions of corruption involving Qatar which led to a vast operation by the Belgian police on Friday December 9 in Brussels.
In the evening, the Greek socialist MEP Eva Kaili, who is one of the vice-presidents of the assembly, was arrested at her home in Brussels to be heard, a source familiar with the matter told AFP, confirming press information. This is the fifth arrest of the day.
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“Influencing the economic and political decisions of the European Parliament”
Four men were arrested in the morning; the companion of Eva Kaili Francesco Giorgi, who is a parliamentary assistant, as well as an NGO director, the Italian trade union leader Luca Visentini and the former MEP Pier-Antonio Panzeri who sat from 2004 to 2019.
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The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office announced the police operation without identifying the suspects or naming the “Gulf Stateson which weigh these suspicions of corruption. But the same source familiar with the matter confirmed to AFP that it was Qatar, as revealed in a joint investigation by the French-language newspaper The evening and the Flemish weekly Knack.
The investigation, piloted for four months by a Brussels financial judge, targets facts of “corruption” and of “money launderingin an organized gang, underlined the federal prosecution in a press release. This Gulf country is suspected of “influencing the economic and political decisions of the European Parliament, by paying large sums of money or by offering important gifts“, he continues. As for the beneficiaries, they are personalities having “a significant political and/or strategic positionin Parliament.
Half a million in cash
The police operation gave rise to sixteen searches in total in various municipalities of the Belgian capital, where the European Parliament has its headquarters. During the operation, the police got their hands on “around 600,000 euros in cash“, as well as “computer equipment and mobile phoneswhose contents will be analyzed. The gifts or benefits offered could be linked to Qatar’s desire to improve its maligned reputation for human rights and the treatment of foreign workers.
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Among those arrested, the secretary general of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC, or Ituc in English), Luca Visentini, spoke again this week of the situation of workers in Qatar, in an interview broadcast on Friday by AFP. This Italian official called in particular to “continue to put pressure on authorities and employersfor better pay and more job mobility.
In a succinct message on its website, the ITUC said “aware of the information circulating in the press“, but declined to comment”at this stage“. As for the Greek Socialist Party (Pasok-Kinal) of which Eva Kaili was a member, he announced in the evening in Athens that she wasruled out».
“Historical transformation”
This 44-year-old former TV presenter, who is one of the fourteen vice-presidents of the European Parliament, had met in Qatar shortly before the start of the World Cup with the Qatari Minister of Labor Ali bin Samikh Al Marri. On this occasion, the Greek elected representative hailed, on behalf of the EU, Qatar’s commitment to “pursue labor reformsaccording to a tweet from the Union’s Ambassador to Doha Cristian Tudor.
«Today, the FIFA World Cup in Qatar is concrete proof of how sports diplomacy can lead to a historic transformation of a country whose reforms have inspired the Arab world.“, had also declared Eva Kaili at the tribune of the European Parliament on November 22. “Qatar is a leader in labor rights“, she said.