“Qatargate”: MEP Eva Kaili remains in detention

The Brussels Council Chamber has extended the preventive detention of the ex-vice-president of the European Parliament, accused of corruption.

MO12345lemonde with AFP

Belgian justice ordered Thursday the maintenance in pre -trial detention of the Greek MEP Eva Kaili, charged in an investigation for corruption involving Qatar, announced the federal prosecutor’s office. The Brussels Council Chamber refused the request for an electronic bracelet placement and “extended the pre -trial detention of one month,” the prosecution said in a statement. Eva Kaili lawyers can appeal this decision.

The 44-year-old Greek MEP, deprived on December 13 from his function as vice-president of the European Parliament in the wake of the first revelations but which denies all corruption, appeared Thursday morning during a closed hearing in front The Brussels Council Chamber.

In this scandal which caused a shock wave in the European Parliament and tensions between Qatar and the EU, Eva Kaili is part of a quartet of suspects imprisoned after a charges for “belonging to a criminal organization”, “money laundering” and “corruption”.

December 14 had been decided to keep in prison in Francesco Giorgi, companion of the socialist MEP, and the former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, who also appear as key figures in the file. A fourth accused, Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, leader of an NGO, was granted that day an investment under electronic bracelet, but the measure was suspended because the federal prosecution appealed.

Repeated denial

Former presenter of the television news, which has become a controversial figure of the Greek Socialist Party (Pasok -Kinal) -who excluded her from the first revelations -, Eva Kaili continues to deny having received money from Qatar to influence his political decisions.

According to a Belgian judicial source, bags filled with banknotes worth 150,000 euros were discovered in his apartment in Brussels. But Ms. Kaili “did not know the existence of this money,” said her Greek lawyer Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, according to whom Mr. Giorgi would have “betrayed confidence” of his partner.

In Greece, a joint bank account of the couple was seized by justice, as well as a field of 7,000 m2 on the island of Paros bought via this account, we learned Thursday from a judicial source. An investigation was opened last week by the financial prosecution of Athens.

In Belgium The investigation led by financial judge Michel Claise gave rise to twenty searches in Belgium between December 9 and 12, including in the premises of the European Parliament in Brussels.

/Media reports cited above.