The Belgian justice extends the provisional prison against Eva Kaili for two months

A Belgian court extended the prison term for two months. This Friday, the provisional prison regime for two more months was granted to the Greek Social Democratic MEP and former Vice President of the European Parliament Eva Kaili, accused of criminal organization , corruption and money laundering He was involved in the bribery scheme in the European Parliament linked to Morocco and Qatar.

Kaili, 44, who has been in prison for 84 days, appeared before the court. last Tuesday before a court of appeal in Brussels, to apply for the fourth time to the court for his release with an electronic bracelet.

The Brussels court also decided that he should not be released. extend for one month the provisional prison sentence against another MEP, the Belgian socialist Marc Tarabella, who, like Kailli, appeared at the event. last Tuesday before the judge. Tarabella is accused of the same crimes as the former vice-president of the European Parliament.

Kaili alleged, among other reasons, that she has a daughter of barely two years who can only be see twice a month and denounced having suffered vejatocratic treatmentin jail. Her partner and father of her daughter, parliamentary assistant Francesco Giorgi, accused of the same charges as Kaili, was released on February 23 with an electronic bracelet.

At the beginning of February, also The Italian lobbyist and general secretary of the NGO No Peace Without Justice, Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, had been released on probation.

On the other hand, he continues in For now, the alleged ringleader of the corrupt plot, the former Italian MEP is imprisonedAntonio Panzeri, who has agreed with the Prosecutor's Office on a lesser sentence in exchange for detailing the operation of the bribery network and pointing out others involved.

Scandal in Brussels< /h3>

Kaili, Giorgi, Figa-Talamanca and Panzeri were arrested on December 9 in the framework of a series of raids on different buildings and homes in Belgium in which the agents they seized more than one and a half million euros in cash, computers and mobile phones.

The MEP and dismissed vice-president of the Eurochamber was arrested in that operation ;despite enjoying parliamentary immunity because investigators deemed him committing a flagrant offence, finding large sums of cash at his home and catching his father leaving a Brussels hotel with a suitcase full of money.

The police searched the They also searched the residence in Anthisnes, in the south of Belgium, of Belgian Socialist MEP Marc Tarabella, but found no evidence that would allow his immediate arrest. For this reason, they asked the European Parliament to withdraw the parliamentary immunity of Tarabella and also of the Italian Social Democrat MEP Andrea Cozzolino in order to formally investigate them.

Once the plenary session of the European Parliament withdrew their authority. After that judicial protection, the police detained Tarabella on February 10, returned to the prison. to search his address and confiscated a safe deposit box that had his name in a bank in Liège.

Tarabella's environment, whom Panzeri has betrayed as involved in the plot, according to the leaks published by the Belgian press, insisted & oacute; that he is “innocent, he has nothing to be ashamed of and he has never received money or gifts in exchange for his opinions” , while he congratulated himself on his opinion. He said that he will be “shortly transferred to a prison closer to his family.”

Cozzolino's defense, under house arrest in Naples (southern Italy), put the Last Tuesday in doubt that the Belgian Justice can guarantee him a fair trial for giving credence to the “inventions” of his accuser, Panzeri. The hearing to decide on the Euro-warrant sent by the Belgian Justice for the extradition was postponed until then to the next March 14.