2023-05-27 00:23:26
“Next week, she will be in the European Parliament to perform her duties,” said the Greek lawyer on Friday. d’Eva Kaili, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, on the Greek television channel Skaï. The day before, Belgian justice authorized the 44-year-old former journalist, emblematic figure of the scandal of the “Qatargate”To remove your electronic bracelet and released her from house arrest pending trial for corruption.
The MEP has yet to ask parliament to determine whether her surveillance, arrest and imprisonment violated her rights as an MEP, added Michalis Dimitrakopoulos. A former rising star in the European Parliament, Eva Kaili was dismissed from office vice-president and excluded from her group in the parliament of the Socialists and Democrats.
Two other suspects removed their bracelets
Arrested in December in the Belgian capital during a wave of searches, Eva Kaili had been released from prison in mid-April, but assigned to residence under electronic bracelet. Two other suspects in this case of alleged corruption within the European Parliament have already benefited this month from the lifting of this measure of surveillance at home.
They are the Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella, who like Eva Kaili proclaims his innocence, and Francesco Giorgi, companion of the Greek elected representative and former parliamentary assistant to Pier Antonio Panzeri. The latter, a former Italian MEP (2004-2019), who is the central figure in the case, remains placed under an electronic bracelet, one of the methods of preventive detention in Belgium.
In this case of alleged corruption for the benefit of Qatar and Morocco, at least six suspects have been charged, suspected in particular of participation in a criminal organization and money laundering.
“She thinks she will be acquitted”
The scandal erupted in December when Belgian investigators seized during searches in Brussels – in particular at the homes of Eva Kaili and Pier Antonio Panzeri – about 1.5 million euros in small bills distributed in suitcases or bags. The investigating judge in charge of the investigation, Michel Claise, suspects cash payments intervened in exchange for political decisions or positions favorable to Qatar and Morocco in the European Parliament, which Doha and Rabat have firmly denied.
Michalis Dimitrakopoulos assured Friday that Pier Antonio Panzeri was the “mastermind” and that Kaili’s fingerprints had not been found on the money seized by the police. “She thinks she will be acquitted (…) if the case goes to trial,” he added.
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