MEP Eva Kaili’s lawyer stated on Thursday that she has been going through “medieval” conditions throughout her interrogation by Belgian authorities following her arrest for alleged involvement within the Qatargate scandal.
Her lawyer Michalis Dimitrakopoulos claimed that Kaili was not too long ago pressured to undergo a 16-hour interrogation and was detained in isolation, with the lights on continuously and was denied a second blanket she requested due to the chilly.
He made it clear that the “Medieval-style tortures”, as he described, didn’t happen within the fashionable jail of Haren however in police buildings, the place the extra interrogations passed off.
EURACTIV contacted the Federal Prosecutor’s Workplace for a remark, however no reply was offered by the point of this text’s publication.
Kaili made a brand new request to be launched, which the Belgian choose rejected on Thursday, fearing that she might try and destroy proof and alter the course of the investigation.
The Greek MEP insists that she is harmless and has no concept of the unlawful actions of her Italian companion Francesco Giorgi and the alleged mastermind of the scandal, Antonio Panzeri. They’ve been each arrested and imprisoned since early December 2022.
However issues have modified since former Italian MEP Pier-Antonio Panzeri determined to collaborate with Belgian justice to make clear the scandal, which has shaken the European Parliament.
EURACTIV was knowledgeable that Panzeri will participate in new rounds of testimonies because of begin on 24 January.
A supply near the problem informed EURACTIV that Panzeri has already referred to Kaili’s function within the scandal “in a unfavourable method” with out elaborating additional.
He allegedly additionally admitted that cash had been acquired by third international locations to “pay notably EU lawmakers”, the supply stated.
On condition that Panzeri should communicate the reality to get a lesser sentence, Brussels stakeholders are already panicking about whose title may crop up and from which EU establishment.
[Edited by Alice Taylor]
