The lawyers of former Vice-President of the European Parliament Eva Kaili – one of the key figures implicated in the Qatargate scandal – have condemned Belgian prosecutors' "double standards" for charging their client with corruption whilst allegedly ignoring copious evidence of malfeasance by Belgian MEP Marie Arena.
Speaking to La Libre, the Greek MEP's attorneys also claimed that the sworn statements exonerating Arena by Italian former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, who has already confessed to accepting bribes is now formally collaborating with the Belgian authorities, "are not corroborated by the facts".
Furthermore, they alleged that the Federal Prosecutor's Office's (FPO) recent decision not to request the lifting of Arena's parliamentary immunity may have been driven by the FPO's desire to suppress any evidence that could conflict with Panzeri's testimony.
"Initially, the investigators were interested in several people," the lawyers said. "And, among the potential suspects, we find, on many occasions, the name of Marie Arena. The number of times her name appears in the file is out of proportion with what is mentioned about our client, Eva Kaili."
Eva KAILI in the EP in Strasbourg. Credit: EP Photo
They added: "We are convinced that if Arena's immunity is lifted, she could say things that would counteract Panzeri's words. His 'repentant' status would then be outdated, which could call into question all this stuff set up by the FPO."
This is not the first time that Kaili's team have openly accused the Belgian judicial authorities of double standards. In an interview with Italian media earlier this year, Kaili herself suggested that Arena had avoided arrest because she enjoys "special immunity".
"During the first interrogation and before repenting, Panzeri mentioned the names of two Italian-speaking Members of Parliament and not mine and does not speak of me even in telephone intercepts," Kaili said. "The first was arrested, the other person had no problems. I still wonder why. Maybe because [she is] protected by special immunity?"
When asked by the interviewer whether she was referring respectively to fellow socialist Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella and Arena, Kaili responded: "The names are in the documents."
'Belgian justice has been manipulated'
In another explosive allegation, Kaili's lawyers allege that the case's former investigating judge Michel Claise had been placed in charge of the investigation for "obscure reasons" that may themselves have been improper.
Claise subsequently recused himself from the probe after it was discovered that his son, Nicholas, had co-founded a business with Arena's son, Ugo Lemaire, in 2018.
The attorneys also pointed out that €280,000 in cash was later found in an apartment belonging to Lemaire but that this did not result in Arena's arrest. However, when €150,000 in cash was discovered in Kaili's apartment last year she was formally charged with corruption and placed in pre-trial detention for several months.
"For our client, this justified an arrest and preventive detention," they said. "For Marie Arena, nothing."
Pier Antonio Panzeri. Credit: EP Photo
When asked for their thoughts on why, given her alleged innocence, Kaili had been charged at all, her lawyers claimed that it was likely because of Kaili's position on the parliamentary committee investigating the controversial "Pegasus" spyware software.
"There is a very, very, very big coincidence between the beginning of this pseudo-Qatagate and the work of the MEPs on Pegasus," they said. "We are only noticing a strange coincidence. And what is especially very serious is that in order to take an interest in Pegasus, we note that there has been an infiltration of secret services within the European institutions. There it is, the real scandal."
They concluded: "We are facing a double standard, at all levels. Today, the federal magistrate in charge of the case [Michel Claise] is going to continue his career elsewhere. And he leaves his successor with a file where the most basic rules of law have been violated... Belgian justice has been manipulated."
Marie Arena has denied all involvement in the Qatargate affair.
