Qatargate, remain in prison. Panzeri and Figà-Talamanca- Corriere.it

BRUSSELS As in a cruel game of the goose, what for Niccol Fig-Talamanca was more than the simple hope of going to house arrest fades away yesterday when the judges in Brussels accept the appeal of the federal prosecutor’s office in the investigation into the corruption that allegedly shattered the policy of the European Parliament to the interests of Qatar and Morocco. Avoid the risk of a no Antonio Panzeri who strategically gets a postponement while the investigators reconstruct the network of his relationships among the Italian MEPs.

Five days after the arrest, on December 14 Fig-Talamanca he had obtained house arrest with the electronic bracelet from the Court of First Instance. The Prosecutor’s appeal to the Court of Appeal had been swift and had prevented the secretary of the NGO
No peace without justice fosse released, as the Belgian system provides unlike the Italian one where you are first released from prison and then eventually you go back inside. In yesterday’s hearing, the appeal judges agreed with the prosecutors and revoked those house arrests that had remained only on paper.

What is Fig-Talamanca accused of? Of conspiracy, corruption and money laundering, just like everyone else who was arrested with him, including the former vice president of Parliament Eva Kaili. First of all Antonio Panzeri, the deus ex machina of the hong

Fight impunity

who, according to the Brussels federal prosecutor’s office, instead of fighting for human rights, struggled to fill his suitcases with the cash that came to him from Qatar and Morocco. Taking advantage of the network of acquaintances woven over 15 years as a European parliamentarian for the Democratic Party and then for Article 1, Panzeri would have been able to bend the decisions of the assembly and prevent them from damaging the image of the two countries which had more than a few problems in respect of human rights.

In this framework, the NGO of Fig-Talamanca would have had the role of making the money circulate, Francesco Giorgi, Panzeri’s business partner with a 50% stake, told the investigators. According to the indictment there would be indications of guilt in relation to relations with Qatar for which Fig-Talamanca has made available the accounts of its companies and its personnel. Examination of these accounts would make it seem possible that they may have been fueled by money flows of illicit origins. One of the passages that would demonstrate his hypothetical possible participation in criminal activity would be the one with which his Belgian company Nakaz bought an apartment in Cervinia (Aosta) last April, which was seized, for around 230 thousand euros. A simple search would have been enough, instead to prove it in the records there is an interception in which the suspect refers to Nakaz when speaking to a building materials store. The suspicion, therefore, would be that the house in the shadow of the Matterhorn and the renovation works were financed with money arriving from Qatar, despite the defendants having deposited the documentation proving that the 90 square meter apartment was entirely purchased taking out a mortgage.

Right now the goal of the pm sseems the network set up by Panzeri and Giorgi, with the undoubted contribution of the PD MEP Andrea Cozzolino, to condition the Brussels assembly with an activity of interference within the European institutions fueled by the corruption of subjects at the top of this world . The names of Alessandra Moretti and the Italo-Belgians Marc Tarabella and Maria Arena appear in the documents (they are not suspects) but there are many others who have been omitted. Characters with whom the team has had relations to mainly influence the S&D group, even if only for a comment before or after a vote that could be decisive for whoever had to report to Qatar and Morocco. In recent weeks there has been talk of about sixty people, but it is said that it does not go beyond a simple connection. Meanwhile, Panzeri also remains in prison. Yesterday he prudently asked for the examination of his request for release to be postponed to 17 January.