Belgian justice on Thursday ordered the continued detention of Greek MEP Eva Kaili, charged in a corruption investigation involving Qatar, announced the federal prosecutor’s office. The Brussels council chamber refused the request for placement under an electronic bracelet and “extended the preventive detention for a month”, the prosecution said in a statement. Eva Kaili’s lawyers can appeal this decision.
The 44-year-old Greek MEP, stripped of her post as Vice-President of the European Parliament on December 13 in the wake of the first revelations but who denies any corruption, appeared Thursday morning during a hearing behind closed doors before the Chamber of Brussels Council.
In this scandal, which has caused shock waves in the European Parliament and tensions between Qatar and the EU, Eva Kaili is one of a quartet of suspects imprisoned after being charged with “belonging to a criminal organization”, “laundering of money” and “corruption”.
On December 14, it was decided to keep Francesco Giorgi, companion of the Socialist MEP, and former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri in prison, who also appear as key figures in the file. A fourth defendant, Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, leader of an NGO, had been granted placement under an electronic bracelet that day, but the measure was suspended because the federal prosecutor’s office appealed.
Repeated denials
A former television news presenter, who has become a controversial figure in the Greek Socialist Party (Pasok) – which excluded her from the first revelations – Eva Kaili continues to deny having received money from Qatar to influence her political decisions.
According to a Belgian judicial source, bags filled with banknotes worth 150,000 euros were discovered in his apartment in Brussels. Butme Kaili “did not know the existence of this money”had already affirmed his Greek lawyer Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, according to whom Mr. Giorgi would have “betrayed trust” of his companion.
In Greece, a joint bank account of the couple was seized by justice, as well as a plot of 7,000 square meters on the island of Paros bought with this account, we learned Thursday from a judicial source. An investigation was opened last week by the Athens Financial Prosecutor’s Office.
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.