euronews.com.- The lawyer for former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri on Wednesday confirmed the involvement of Qatar and Morocco in the European Parliament corruption scandal, but denied that his client was the sole ringleader in the scheme.
Mr Panzeri has confessed to having actively participated in acts of corruption in relation to Qatar and Morocco and therefore to having been corrupt and to having bribed others,” his lawyer, Laurent Kennes, told Euronews in an interview.
However, he has refused to confirm whether more foreign countries are involved and argued that he is keeping quiet about that to “allow the investigation to progress.”
“Everyone knows that we are talking about a case involving Qatar and Morocco. If there are other countries, the investigation must be able to move forward without everything being revealed to the press. And that is called investigation secrecy,” the lawyer said.
The Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced on Tuesday that Panzeri, an Italian Socialist who served three terms in the European Parliament, had signed a “repentance agreement” and pledged to share “substantial and revealing” information about the bribery scheme in exchange for a lesser sentence.
Four people, including Panzeri, have been arrested and charged in connection with the investigation into “large sums of money” paid by a country that until now had only been officially identified as a Persian Gulf state, and which has now been confirmed to be Qatar, with the aim of influencing EU policy-making.
Both Qatar and Morocco, which has emerged in recent weeks as another possible implicated party, deny the allegations.
No new names yet
As part of the agreement reached with the Belgian authorities, Panzeri has also acknowledged being a “leader of the criminal organisation”, Kennes confirmed, although he added that “it does not mean that he is the only leader”.
“It means that he is at least one of the leaders of an organisation that had as one of its objectives to corrupt people,” the lawyer said.
Under the agreement, Panzeri has pledged to inform Belgian authorities of the involvement of others, including the identity of people he admits bribing. But Kennes has refused to name names or say whether sitting MEPs or officials working in other EU institutions are involved, again citing the secrecy of the investigation.
To make those names public “would be to announce in advance what he is going to say in secret” and “would be a violation of the agreement we have with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office”, Kennes said.
“My client is not interested in communicating his information, we speak in his interest and in relation to what he wants to say. But we do not communicate elements that he will communicate to the courts, for the sake of justice,” he added.
The three other people currently in custody are Greek MEP Eva Kaili, her partner Francesco Giorgi and the director of the NGO Niccolò Figà-Talamanca. The Belgian authorities have also requested the lifting of the immunity of two other Socialist MEPs: Marc Tarabella (Belgium) and Andrea Cozzolino (Italy).
