ROME – APS.dz – Morocco has offered gifts and holidays worth up to 100,000 euros to bribe MEPs in exchange for electoral support in the European Parliament, according to new revelations about Moroccogate, the high-profile corruption scandal within the European Union (EU) institution.
“The team accused of creating the corruption scheme in Brussels also worked to obtain votes” for Morocco, Italian daily Il fatto quotidiano reported, citing the Belgian secret service in charge of the European Parliament bribery investigation.
A report by the same services underlines that “the group – of MEPs involved in the affair – worked in exchange for electoral support orchestrated by the Moroccan authorities and considerable sums paid clandestinely, in cash, by Morocco”.
According to the investigators, the former member of parliament Antonio Panzeri, the present member of parliament Andrea Cozzolino and his adviser Francesco Giorgi worked for Dged (General Direction of Studies and Documentation, i.e. the Moroccan secret services), in return for payment, with the aim of influencing decisions of the European Parliament in favour of Morocco, in particular on the question of Western Sahara.
The group operated “with a discretion which goes beyond mere prudence, avoiding appearing too openly pro-Moroccan in the European Parliament, using coded language and hiding money in flats”, say the Brussels secret services in the report which triggered the investigation and which was revealed by “Il fatto quotidiano”.
In addition, the Belgian extradition order against Maria Dolores Colleoni and Silvia Panzeri, Panzeri’s wife and daughter respectively, names Abderrahim Atmoun, Rabat’s ambassador to Poland, as the author of “gifts” from which Mrs Panzeri “apparently benefited”. The same documents also mention holidays costing up to “100,000 euros”.
Ambassador Atmoun was chairman of the Morocco-EU Interparliamentary Committee for the Economy, Bilateral Relations, Human Rights and the Fight against Terrorism, and it was there that he began collaborating with Panzeri, then an MEP and chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, as well as a member of the delegation for relations with the Maghreb countries and the Arab Maghreb Union.
Moroccogate “Blackmailing Europe and the rest of the world”.
The Italian daily has made a link between “Moroccogate” and the Pegasus spy scandal, pointing out that behind Morocco’s involvement is above all the “Euro-Mediterranean agreement” between the EU and Rabat.
Thus the daily indicates that the “Euroscandal” had revealed certain practices used by the Moroccan secret services for “actions of persuasion” and “control” of certain MEPs intercepted using Pegasus, the spy software developed by the Zionist company NSO Group.
The Saharawi activist Mohamed Dihani also explained to the Italian newspaper “Il Messaggero” that “the Pegasus spying programme was used as an arm of the Moroccan secret services to blackmail Europe and the rest of the world”.
“Il fatto quotidiano” recalls that MP Cozzolino, one of the protagonists of the scandal – although he has not yet been charged – was a member of the parliamentary commission of enquiry into the Zionist spy software.
In an interview with Il Domani daily, Sophie in’t Veld, rapporteur of the EU commission of enquiry into the use of Pegasus and equivalent spy surveillance software (Pega), explained that the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Eva Kaili, who has been charged in the case, tried to stop the investigation into Pegasus during the Greek wiretapping scandal.
The Greek woman, who has now lost her post as Vice-President, remains in custody.
The Brussels Council Chamber, before which the Socialist politician appeared 11 days after her arrest, on Thursday rejected her request for an electronic bracelet and “extended her pre-trial detention by one month”, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced in a statement.
Eva Kaili is one of four suspects arrested after being charged with “belonging to a criminal organisation”, “money laundering” and “corruption”
