Three people are currently imprisoned in the survey of Belgian justice in suspicions of corruption within the European Parliament involving Qatar and Morocco.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
Deprived eight days ago of his parliamentary immunity, the Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella was arrested by the police, Friday, February 10, in the survey of Belgian justice on suspicions of corruption within the European Parliament involving Qatar and Morocco.
The 59-year-old socialist elected official, domiciled in the Liège region, was taken to be heard in the premises of the federal judicial police in Brussels, according to a spokesperson for the federal prosecution. At the end of this police custody, which cannot exceed forty-eight hours, it could be presented to the investigating judge in charge of the investigation.
In addition to the arrest, several offices of the Town Hall of Anthisnes – where Mr. Tarabella is bourgmestre – were searched, said the federal prosecutor’s office. Another search has also targeted “a bank trunk located in Liège” which belongs to it.
Three people are currently imprisoned in this file, including the Greek MEP Eva Kaili, in December deprived of its function as vice-president of the Parliament. The other two are the companion of the latter, the parliamentary assistant Francesco Giorgi, and the former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, also Italian.
implicated by Pier Antonio Panzeri 2>
m. Panzeri, a key suspect in the file, who admitted to having orchestrated this interference of several foreign powers in European policy, questioned Marc Tarabella before the investigators. According to the Belgian press, the Italian said in December that it has paid “between 120,000 and 140,000 euros” in several times to the Belgian elected official, for his help in the files related to Qatar.
In Brussels, the investigators got their hands on 1.5 million euros in cash during several searches in December, notably to the homes of Mr. Panzeri and M me kaili.
m. Tarabella denied having received “money or gifts in exchange for [his] political opinions”. The authorities of Qatar and Morocco have also strongly denied these suspicions of corruption.
The judge in charge of the investigation is also interested in Italian Andrea Cozzolino, another elected official from the European Parliament. His parliamentary immunity was lifted at the same time as that of Mr. Tarabella, on February 2, by a plenary vote of the elected institution of the EU. That day, in Brussels, Marc Tarabella himself voted to lift his immunity, saying that he was ready to answer questions from the investigators.