The Police detain four people, including a former MEP, investigated for having received payments and gifts
The Belgian Prosecutor’s Office is investigating a plot of corruption and interference that could have its roots in community institutions. The Police carried out this Friday a large raid in different various neighborhoods of Brussels, as part of an anti-corruption investigation that splashes the European Parliament. The operation resulted in four arrests – including a former MEP – and 14 investigated, on suspicion of having received favors and gifts from Qatar.
Today’s operation was the culmination of an extensive investigation that began four months ago. The Federal Judicial Police carried out fourteen searches, particularly in the neighborhoods of Ixelles, Schaerbeek, Crainhem and Forest “as part of an extensive investigation into alleged acts of criminal organization, corruption and money laundering,” the Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. Belgian.
The researchers “suspect that a Gulf country is trying to influence the economic and political decisions of the European Parliament” and the national newspaper ‘Le Soir’ points out that several sources point directly to Qatar. Apparently, the host country of the 2022 World Cup would have paid “substantial sums of money and significant gifts” to people with “political and/or strategic positions within the European Parliament,” says the Prosecutor’s Office.
According to the investigation by ‘Le Soir’, among those arrested would be the former Social Democratic MEP Pier-Antonio Panzeri. At his residence, the Police would have found up to 500,000 euros in cash. The new secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, Luca Visentini, the director of an NGO in favor of Human Rights and an assistant to the Eurochamber were also arrested. All of them will go to court in the next 48 hours.
6,500 workers died
During the searches, the security forces seized computers and mobile phones, where they hope to find evidence of Qatar’s attempts to defend its organization of the World Cup, its alleged advances in the field of Human Rights and the working conditions of immigrants in this country. Arab. According to the newspaper ‘The Guardian’, up to 6,500 workers from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan, among others, would have died in the construction of the stadiums for the celebration of the World Cup.
The operation carried out in Brussels has focused on parliamentary assistants, mostly young students. In addition, four of them are close to the group of European Socialists (S&D) and another to the popular Europeans (PPE), according to information published by ‘Le Soir’.
The investigators searched the residences of two advisers and an official of the European Parliament, in addition to several directors of the active lobbies in Brussels. They try to determine, in this way, the scope of the plot within the European Parliament and if there are more people involved. The community institution, for its part, refused to make any comment on the ongoing legal proceedings. However, he insisted that the institution “cooperates fully with the competent national authorities.”
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