The partner of jailed European Parliament Vice-President Eva Kaili has reportedly confessed to charges of corruption, a Belgian newspaper has reported.
Francesco Giorgi, a parliamentary assistant within Brussels and boyfriend of former European Parliament VP Eva Kaili, is said to have confessed to having been part of an organisation that aimed to interfere in EU affairs.
It is the latest chapter in an ongoing corruption scandal plaguing the parliament which has seen offices raided, hundreds of thousands of euros in cash seized, and Kaili removed from office and jailed while awaiting trial.
According to a report by the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, court documents show that Giorgi has admitted to authorities that he was part of an organisation being used by Morocco and Qatar to manipulate EU policy.
The documents also reportedly show that former socialist MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, who is said to have been detained by authorities last Friday, is the leader of this group.
Speaking on the documents, Panzeri’s lawyer stated that he “does not have this information”, and that it was “a violation” of the ongoing corruption investigation.
“My only reaction is that it is extraordinary, when we do not have access to this document, that you have access to it,” Panzeri’s lawyer reportedly said.
Largely centring around hardline leftists operating within the European Parliament, the ongoing corruption scandal allegedly involving various influential persons taking bribes from the likes of Islamist Qatar, has elicited some amusement among those who the EU has accused of corruption itself.
One of those was Marine Le Pen, who saw her party repeatedly attacked for taking a loan from a Czech-Russian bank after French banks allegedly refused to do business with them.
“They dragged us through the mud because of a completely transparent and perfectly legal loan from a Czech-Russian bank. Meanwhile, Qatar was waltzing the suitcases of tickets to all these corrupt people from the so-called ‘good side’,” she said on Twitter.
Meanwhile, Viktor Orbán, who had his country labelled as being “no longer a democracy” by the European Parliament earlier this year has simply laughed at the institution, putting up a meme on social media on Monday mocking the body.
He later shared a post published by authorities in Belgium reportedly showing some of the wads of cash confiscated during the investigation, with the total haul said to have so far amounted to nearly €1.5 million (~$1.6 million)
“This is what the rule of law looks like in [Brussels],” he wrote.
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