The pre-trial detention period of former Greek Vice President of the European Parliament Eva Kaili, one of the figures under investigation amid the institution’s bribery scandal, has been extended by one month. The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office made the announcement on December 22th.
Kaili appeared Thursday morning before a Brussels court, Le Soir and other Belgian media reported. The court decided that Kaili will remain in Belgian authorities’ custody for an additional month. While she could appeal this decision within 24 hours and have her case reassessed within 15 days, her lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, said they will not do so.
After the hearing, another member of Kaili’s legal team, André Risopolous, said at Brussels’ Palais de Justice that they had requested that their client be electronically monitored with a bracelet since she had shown herself a willing participant in the investigation. That request was, however, rejected.
Risopoulos said that they were “not going to comment further on the investigation,” since that “would only be to Ms. Kaili’s detriment, and could damage the investigation. That investigation must be conducted solely by the judicial authorities, and by no one else.”
He went on to stress his alarm over the fact that a great deal of information about the investigation and the suspects’ statements had been revealed through the press. “I have never witnessed the secrecy of an investigation being violated in such a way,” he lamented. “Nor am I the only one who feels this way,” noting that the federal prosecutor’s office had since launched an investigation into those press leaks.
Prosecutors are investigating whether Kaili, among others, was trying to promote Qatar’s interests through the EU Parliament after having taken money from the Gulf state. Kaili has been detained for nearly two weeks since her December 9th arrest. Investigators have since launched an extensive probe into the lobbying operation.
Kaili’s defense team, through which she handles her communications with the outside world, maintains that their client is innocent and was never bribed.
On the day Belgian police raided the home of Kaili and her partner Francesco Giorgi, who works as an assistant in the European Parliament, detectives found €150,000 in cash.
According to Dimitrakopoulos, his client “did not know about the existence of this money,” and said that Giorgi had “betrayed the trust” of his partner.
Moments earlier, Kaili’s father, in what has been described by authorities as a state of panic, had left with a suitcase. Detectives tracked him back to the luxury hotel Sofitel, where they intercepted him as soon as he entered the room that he had rented. In his suitcase, another €750,000 in cash was found.
In Greece, a joint bank account of the Kaili-Giorgi couple has since been seized by the judiciary, as well as 7,000 square meters of land on the island of Paros acquired through this account.
Along with Kaili, three others suspected of having taken bribes are currently being detained.
These are her partner, Francesco Giorgi (who the court decided to keep detained for another month last Wednesday); former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, considered a key figure in the case and at whose residence €600,000 was found, and Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, head of the NGO ‘No Peace Without Justice.’
A hearing for the latter has been set for December 27th, according to his lawyer.
While information remains scant, Morocco is also mentioned in the ongoing investigation. Its intelligence agency, DGED, is suspected of corruption along with the Moroccan ambassador to Poland, Abderrahim Atmoun.
