Eva Kaili has announced from prison that she wants to return to politics as soon as possible. Now she can at least live near the European Parliament again – in the apartment where she was provisionally arrested on December 9th. The former Vice-President of the European Parliament is allowed to leave the women’s prison in the Haren district of Brussels with an electronic ankle bracelet. Of all those suspected to be involved in the Qatargate corruption scandal, why did she, the mother of a two-year-old child, have to remain in custody the longest? The Belgian investigators have not yet explained this to the public.
It’s because of her celebrity, says Eva Kaili herself. At the end of March she received her first political visitor in prison. It wasn’t anyone from Kaili’s Socialist group that she says she feels betrayed by, nor anyone from her native Greece, which particularly disappoints her, but Deborah Bergamini of Forza Italia, a European politician in the Italian national parliament. A description of the conversation was later found in the newspaper Corriere della Sera. The Belgian judiciary is holding her captive as a “trophy,” Kaili complained. She feels “politically persecuted”. The prison conditions were initially inhuman; without heating, without warm water, she spent many days in the cell. She thought of suicide several times. But then, Kaili said, she decided to fight until she made a political comeback. She still denies any guilt.
The large amount of money that was found on her came from her partner, says the European politician
Membership in a criminal organization, corruption, money laundering – these are the allegations. The investigators are investigating the suspicion that the Greek, as Vice President, influenced political decisions in the European Parliament in return for money from Qatar. With amazing vigour, she defended the emirate against allegations of human rights violations before the 2022 World Cup. During the raid on December 9, the police found 600,000 euros in cash on her. But this money has nothing to do with her political stance, Eva Kaili claims. She feels fooled by her partner Francesco Giorgi.
The Belgian Marc Tarabella, who sat in the EU Parliament for the Social Democrats, has also been under house arrest since Thursday. He denies the allegations of corruption.
(Photo: Johanna Geron/Reuters)
Giorgi, an official of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, has been working as a stooge for former Socialist MEP Antonio Panzeri, who is believed to be the mastermind behind the scandal. Both have confessed and, also with electronic ankle bracelets, have long since been released from prison. Panzeri has made himself available to the investigators as a key witness and has described how he distributed the bribes he received from middlemen in Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania among MEPs.
The key witness states that Kaili was bribed
The Social Democratic MP Marc Tarabella from Belgium received 120,000 to 140,000 euros from himself. Tarabella was released on Thursday and continues to deny any involvement, as does Andrea Cozzolino, also a Social Democrat, who was also accused. The Belgian judiciary has requested the extradition of Cozzolino and Panzeri’s tax advisor Monica Bellini, but so far the two have successfully defended themselves. Reason: The Belgian judiciary wants to extract confessions from suspects who are being held under unreasonable conditions.
Eva Kaili’s lawyer, Sven Mary, also claims this. The Belgian investigators wanted to extract a confession from his client after hours of questioning, but they would never get this confession because Kaili was innocent, the lawyer said in an interview. All sorts of details from the investigation have become public, but what exactly the police have in their hands against Kaili beyond the money is not yet known. Panzeri said she belonged to the group of MPs who had been bribed, but that he did not personally hand over the money to the Greek woman. Intermediary was Francesco Giorgi, Kaili’s partner. The investigations continue.