The former vice-president of the European Parliament, investigated for the alleged bribes of Qatar to various members of the Eurochamber, has missed his appointment with the judge on Wednesday at the Palace of Justice in Brussels, which the other three defendants have attended. The lawyer of Eva Kaili has stated to the media that her client is innocent and that all responsibility lies with her husband, Francesco Giorgi. “She has nothing to do with the financing of Qatar, nothing, explicitly and unequivocally.”
Also read: Eva Kaili, the MEP who praises Qatar, caught with bags of money in her home
Kaili, a representative of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), remains in pretrial detention since she was arrested last Friday and accused of alleged involvement in criminal organization, money laundering and corruption in relation to an Arab country. The agents responsible for the operation Qatargate, as the case has been baptized, they discovered “several bags full of money” with more than one million euros at the home of the 44-year-old presenter. Also her father Alexandros Kailiwas caught running from the hotel where he was staying with a suitcase full of banknotes.
Eva Kaili is immensely famous in her country, where she was a newscaster, a kind of Queen Letizia who, instead of marrying the heir to the Crown, went into politics. She is the first woman to hold the Presidency for Science and Technology in the European Parliament. In 2019 she was re-elected as MEP for the 2019-2024 legislature as representative of Greece. Following her accusations, she has been expelled from the Eurochamber and all her assets and accounts have been seized, as well as those of her relatives. She, in pretrial detention, will appear before the judge on the 22nd.
Qatargate has turned the European Parliament upside down. Investigations into the plot have not officially confirmed that it is Qatar, but according to the Prosecutor’s Office it is known that some country in the Persian Gulf would have distributed important gifts and substantial sums of money to various people with significant political or strategic positions in the Eurochamber. According to several German newspapers, Morocco could also be involved.