the hypothesis that the Qatargate investigation will expand – Corriere.it

FROM OUR REPORTER
STRASBOURG – He spoke for hours, the statements made by Francesco Giorgi immediately after his arrest last Friday when he ended up in prison with his partner, the vice president of the European Parliament Eva Kaili, and 6 other people were a flood. including the former European deputy Antonio Panzeri, accused of being the maneuver of a bribe system which served to influence the institution’s policy in favor of the Morocco and Qatarthe latter at the center of the international debate for allegations of violation of human and workers’ rights especially during the construction of the works of the World Cup.

Giorgi’s statements help to open a hole that would allow Belgian investigators to extend them or, at least initially, find decisive confirmations of what they have collected in months and months of top secret investigations
games in the past summer and culminating in the blitz on friday. Giorgi was Panzeri’s parliamentary assistant and now the Pd MEP Andrea Cozzolino (not involved in the investigation) who yesterday saw his collaborators’ office sealed off by the Belgian police.

Before Giorgi, Kaili’s father was arrested on Friday while she was dating a man trolley containing 600 thousand euros in 50 euro banknotes from the luxurious hotel where he had settled for a few days with his wife. Someone had to have it notified in advance of the operation of the police and there are those who suspect that it may have been Giorgi himself that he knew something. Perhaps a phone call (Giorgi was probably intercepted) led the agents to stand in front of the hotel to surprise Kaili’s father.

The arrest in the act allowed investigators to search the home of the vice president without having to respect her parliamentary immunity. Inside, expensive gifts from Qatar and more cash: 150,000 euros in banknotes. Giorgi could have many things to say, and he must have said many on Saturday given that the investigating judge Michel Classe had to postpone the other interrogations to collect all of his statements. The subject of the questions could only have been that of the money that Fight immunity could have passed to Kaili and other charactersis also the theme of the activity of the NGO founded in 2019 by Panzeri, immediately after he had left his seat in the European Parliament. The investigation has an offshoot that reaches Italy, where Panzeri’s wife and daughter are under house arrest in the Bergamo area, and in Milan, where Giorgi’s home was searched.