Part of the documentation requested by Cozzolino’s defense is still missing
Belgium, (Brussels Morning Newspaper) The parliamentary assistant who ended up in prison on 9 December left the Saint-Gilles prison to return to his home in Brussels, where he is now under house arrest under the electronic bracelet regime
After the judges’ decision, Francesco Giorgi, the parliamentary assistant who ended up in prison on 9 December as part of the Qatargate together with the former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri and his partner and former vice-president of the European Parliament Eva Kaili, left the prison of Saint-Gilles to return to his home in Brussels, where he is now under house arrest under the electronic bracelet regime.
Last Thursday the Council Chamber of the Brussels court had resolved for the release of Giorgi, who already in mid-December had made a confession to the investigators about the management of the money under electronic surveillance. A decision which the Belgian federal prosecutor – awaiting news on March 7 on the fate of the investigating judge Michael Claise, rejected by the other imprisoned MEP Marc Tarabella ( arrested on February 10 ) and currently suspended – did not oppose. However, the procedures for the suspect’s transfer required a three-day wait due to some technical difficulties related to the electronic bracelet, which were resolved this morning. If there are no further judicial evolutions, a new review of the precautionary measures against Panzeri’s right-hand man will be scheduled for April.
Meanwhile, not all the documentation requested in support of the European arrest warrant has been made available to the lawyers of Andrea Cozzolino ( arrested on a European warrant on 10 February) and, therefore, it is not excluded that tomorrow the Court of Appeal of Naples, called to decide on the request to hand over the MEP to the Belgian authorities, may grant a further postponement. According to the MEP’s defenders, many documents of the partial documentation received arrived in French and only a small part was translated into Italian.
According to the Brussels investigators, Cozzolino (as a member of the European Parliament, as president of the Delegation for relations with the Maghreb countries since 2019 and co-president of the Euro-Moroccan Joint Parliamentary Commission, and also as a member of the special commission ” Pegasus”) would have unduly received, on behalf of the Government of Morocco, probably from such an Atomun, money to exercise its European parliamentary functions in order to favor Morocco’s interests within the European Parliament.
Moreover, always according to the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office (which disputes the crimes of the criminal organization, corruption, and money laundering), everything would have occurred in competition and in association with Pier Antonio Panzeri (former MEP), Francesco Giorgi (former assistant to Pier Antonio Panzeri), Eva Kaili (former vice-president of the Eurochamber), Marc Tarabella (MEP) and Maria Arena (MEP and former president of the parliamentary subcommittee on Human Rights).
Read the original story at: www.ilfattoquotidiano.it
