After the French newspaper Liberation, MEP Eva Kaili who was at the epicentre of the Qatargate scandal also gave an interview to the Italian Corriere, for the sake of which, she was photographed for the first time with her daughter, after her release from prison.
“Panzeri’s confessions were obtained under duress, but he never mentioned me. I am not among the people involved. I never thought of making use of my parliamentary immunity,” said the Greek MEP, among other things, adding that “if I had mentioned important names, I would have immediately returned to my daughter… I would have had to lie.”
Regarding her relationship with Giorgi from now on, she emphasised that time will tell how it will develop, while she described him as “a very good father” to her daughter.
According to Corriere, Kaili was arrested six months ago in Belgium because she was accused of taking part in a corruption scandal in the European Parliament linked to Qatar and Morocco and led by Antonio Panzeri.“Despite the extremely vague and unfounded charges that do not yet explain exactly how, when, and why he would have received the bribes, to such an extent that the Belgian police’s final report of July 2022 states that “there is no evidence that he was part of the organisation”, spent four months in a cell and two under house arrest. She was arrested because, during a raid on December 9, she asked her father to take a suitcase with 700,000 euros in cash, which the judges said was money she had raised with her husband, Francesco Giorgi. The couple immediately defended themselves, saying the money belonged to former MEP Antonio Panzeri. Kaili always vehemently denied any responsibility. She has been free for a few days,” the Italian newspaper emphasizes.
“I feel stronger. I appreciate every moment with my little girl more, I can’t stop looking at her” she initially said, while referring to the conditions of detention, she said: “Immediately after my arrest, at the police station I was put in solitary confinement in a cell with the lights and surveillance camera always on, without running water. I suffered from the bitter cold because my coat was taken from me. I was worried about my child because in the first days I was not allowed to call a lawyer, nor my family. Prison doesn’t change who we are. My Greek lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, asked me to speak because I had the rare opportunity to see and observe how people are treated in Belgian prisons. Instead of closing prisons and reducing the use of pretrial detention, larger prisons are being built and the old prisons have inhumane conditions and are overcrowded. More extreme punishments do not lead to fairer justice.”
Describing the moments of Giorgi’s arrest and Panzeri’s ‘infamous’ suitcase, Ms. Kaili said: ‘When Francesco was arrested and his car was impounded, I thought it was a car accident. Then I was told that Pancheri had also been arrested. I panicked. I knew that in his office, which is in the room upstairs, where I never go, there was a Panzeri suitcase, and I found a lot of money there. I could not understand what had happened, but I wanted to take this money from the house and return it to Pancheri, whom I considered the owner. I didn’t think at all to use my parliamentary immunity, which shows that I had absolutely no idea what this money actually represented.”
