Qatargate suspect and former European Parliament vice president Eva Kaili says she will fight to clear her name in Belgium and will not return to her homeland until she has done so.
Kaili, one of a group of MEPs suspected of having manipulated parliamentary work in exchange for cash, told a Greek magazine that she will “never” return to Greece if her innocence is not established.
“If I fail to convince the Belgian justice system that I am innocent, I will never return to my country, I will be ashamed to look into the eyes of the people I have been with since I was a high school student,” Kaili told To Vima.
Pending trial, Kaili was released on bail from Belgium’s Haren prison with an electronic tag earlier this month. Her bail conditions stipulate that contact with Francesco Giorgi, her partner and the father of her child – who is understood to have cooperated with Belgian investigators – must be monitored. Bail conditions reportedly stipulate that the two live at separate addresses. All suspects have been released pending trial at an unknown date.
According to her lawyer, Kaili will request the removal of her electronic monitoring and wants to go back to work. “We will soon seek for house arrest to be lifted and the [electronic monitoring tag] removed as she is not suspected of running away or other offences,” her lawyer told Skai TV, according to Politico. Kaili is looking to “exercise her political duties and rights at the European Parliament” though it is unclear if she will actually resume her role.
Questions hang over Kaili and the other Qatargate suspects. Kaili’s legal team is claiming that her parliamentary immunity was violated as the Parliament did not lift it prior to her arrest and searches of her home and office. Belgian prosecutors say this was not necessary as she was caught redhanded, though this is contested.
“The police raided her apartment after first arresting her father some miles away – outside a hotel, with the infamous suitcase presumably taken from her apartment,” one of her lawyers, Spyros Pappas, is quoted as saying.
A number of documents, including arrest warrants, have leaked suggesting there are other MEPs that were allegedly involved in the manipulation of work in parliament committees on behalf of Qatar. Belgian investigators have, however, neither questioned them nor asked for the lifting of their immunity.
Morocco is also suspected of having tried to bribe MEPs though here again, despite references to diplomats, no action seems to have been taken.
Both Giorgi and the alleged Qatargate mastermind, former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, are known to have cooperated (the latter has struck a plea bargain).
