Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella (S&D) - one of the central figures implicated in the so-called Qatargate corruption scandal - has been released from pre-trial detention, Belga News Agency reports.
The 60-year-old, who has been under house arrest at his home in Anthisnes, Wallonia, for the past month, will no longer be required to wear a movement-monitoring electronic ankle bracelet and will now be able to move freely.
Former parliamentary assistant Francesco Giorgi, who has also been under house arrest in Belgium in connection with the scandal, was released under similar conditions at the same time as Tarabella.
"Their preventive detention was no longer justified," the Federal Prosecutor's Office announced on Friday. "The Federal Prosecutor's Office agrees with the decision of the investigating judge."
'Nothing to reproach myself for'
Tarabella was arrested by the Belgian authorities on 10 February, just days after his immunity was formally suspended by the European Parliament.
Among other allegations, Tarabella has been accused by Italian former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri of accepting bribes of up to €140,000 to support pro-Qatari policies.
Upon his release from jail last month, Tarabella claimed that he had "nothing to reproach [himself] for", and that he "remain[s] at the complete disposal of the investigators if they have any other questions".
Tarabella's lawyer, Maxim Töller, has also repeatedly defended his client's innocence over the past few months. Indeed, he has even gone as far as to openly question the personal credibility and motives of Panzeri, who has already admitted to having accepted bribes and is now collaborating with the Belgian authorities in order to receive a reduced jail sentence.
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"Panzeri has every interest, in order to benefit from a reduction in his sentence, to give as much information as possible to the investigators," Töller said in February. "There is no guarantee that what he is saying is the truth, everything will be fine for him as long as he is not caught in the act of lying. So I doubt that Panzeri will go back on what he said. He accuses Tarabella in the most infamous of ways, where it is impossible to demonstrate that it is not true."
"Based on the statements of a man whose ability to sell himself is known (to Mauritania, Morocco, Qatar and now, to the Federal Prosecutor's Office), we put someone in preventive detention... I would have preferred that we didn't put my client in prison based on the assertions of a person who wants to say things to get out of prison," he added.
