Francesco Giorgi, partner of the former vice-president of the European Parliament Eva Kaili and arrested in the operation against corruption for bribes paid by Qatar, has implicated this Thursday in a statement to the police the MEP Andrea Cozzolino, head of delegation of the European Parliament for relations with the Maghreb, including Morocco.
According to the newspaper ‘Le Soir’, Giorgi, Cozzolino’s parliamentary assistant, has recognized his role in the organization used by Qatar to bribe MEPs and assistants of the European Parliament to gain political and economic weight in the EU, and has assured that he managed the payments, indicating that both Cozzolino and the Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella benefited from the scheme through the former Italian parliamentarian Pier Antonio Panzeri.
Documents to which the Belgian newspaper has had access show contacts of Panzeri, Cozzolino and Giorgi with the Moroccan Intelligence and the Moroccan ambassador in Poland, Abderrahim Atmun.
In the framework of the operation, the Belgian police found more than 1.5 million euros in cash during the searches of Kaili’s and Panzeri’s homes. It was the arrest of the father of the Greek socialist last Friday in a hotel in Brussels with a suitcase full of «several hundred thousand euros» in cash that served to demonstrate the «flagrant crime» that allowed the authorities to arrest the then vice president, who was removed from office on Tuesday in a vote of the European Parliament.
The court of first instance in Brussels on Wednesday extended the remand ordered on several of those arrested in the plot. In the case of Kaili, he will also remain in prison at least until he appears in court next Thursday, December 22.
