The “friends” of Panzeri’s team Prosecutors ready to stop immunities – Corriere.it

Who are the friends on whom the operational team – as the Belgian investigators emphatically call it – Panzeri-Giorgi-Cozzolino counted on to bend the decisions of the European Parliament to the paid wishes of Qatar and Morocco? And who, like them, and for the same objectives of the same states, acted from within the other European institutions? The judiciary in Brussels could give an initial answer to these crucial questions in the next few days when the investigations restart and the assembly could be asked to waive the immunity of the MEPs involved in the investigation.

The investigation for criminal association, corruption and money laundering which rocked the European Parliament starting from an operation by the Belgian secret services (Vsse) in coordination with those of four other countries and concerns, as written in the documents, the actions of interference within the institutions of the European Union. So not only of Parliament, where the former MEP of the Democratic Party and then of Article One Pier Antonio Panzeri worked for the investigating judge Michel Claise, the current MEP dem Andrea Cozzolino and Francesco Giorgi, former assistant of the first and collaborator of the second. The three would have been able to influence the policy of the Socialists & Democrats parliamentary group to limit or avoid the damage that Parliament’s decisions could have caused to the image of Qatar and Morocco, which had several problems with respect for human rights on own territories.

Since the arrests of December 9, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Brussels and Judge Claise have sailed under water, and perhaps also for this reason, beyond the generic accusations and the equally vague reconstructions that are in the documents much less detailed than required by law in Italy, it has not yet been possible to fully understand what the suspects have done, when and in exchange for exactly what. The sacks of cash (over 750,000 euros) found in the Brussels house that Eva Kaili, the Greek vice president of Parliament dismissed for the investigation, shares with her partner Francesco Giorgi (both arrested) are impossible to justify on a political level , but they must be translated into some criminally recognized conduct by the accusers who, in the few papers that have emerged, do not explain, for example, what Kaili did besides holding cash. The same goes for the other 600,000 euros unearthed in Panzeri’s apartment, whose origin is known only to be linked to Qatar and Morocco through triangulations or direct deliveries. After the arrests, the detectives dedicated themselves to analyzing the seized documents and computer equipment. from which it is said that news and new actions could soon arrive.

In still secret deeds there cannot be other details. For example, what and of what precise nature are the relationships between Panzeri, Giorgi, who is considered his right-hand man and 50% partner in business in the shadow of the NGO Fight impunity, and what are referred to as friends in the S&D group. What are these friends? The names of the Italian-Belgian deputy Marc Tarabella appear, who was also searched on 9 December in the presence of the president Roberta Metsola who arrived from Malta to attend the deed. Then there are very vague references to Maria Arena, also an Italian-Belgian MEP, to the Italians Alessandra Moretti and Brando Benifei, both pds who, like Tarabella and Arena, are not under investigation and have decisively excluded any type of conditioning and favour, returned or received. And their involvement does not seem plausible. Moretti, for example, recalled that she had publicly taken a stand against Qatar. The situation of Cozzolino is more complex. The Belgian services, as reported by the judge, say that there is no doubt about him that with Panzeri and Giorgi he would have cooperated with the Moroccan 007 by taking orders through the Moroccan ambassador in Poland Abderrahim Atmoun and meeting with the director general of the agency by Rabat Dodge Yassine Mansouri.

If there is a network that belongs to Panzeri and Giorgi, inevitably all the shirts are yet to be revealed. There is talk of requests from the federal prosecutor’s office in the next few days for the waiver of immunity for some MEPs, while that of Kaili has already been arrested in the act of committing a crime after she had told her father to take a suitcase away from home with 600 thousand euros inside. It will be the moment when the investigators will have to discover at least some of the cards they jealously keep in store.