Greek MEP Eva Kaili is being held in custody for another month following a ruling by a Belgian court.
The former vice-president of the European Parliament is suspected of being at the center of one of the biggest corruption scandals in the European Union, and her lawyers had applied for her release from prison using a police tracking device.
However, after the hearing, the court stated that it would “extend the pre-trial detention for another month.”
Kaili’s lawyers now have 24 hours to appeal the decision. If they decide to do so, Kaili will appear before the Brussels Court of Appeal within 15 days.
The Belgian public prosecutor accuses Eva Kaili of corruption, membership in a criminal organization and money laundering. She has been in custody since December 9, and her partner Francesco Giorgi, adviser to the European Parliament, is also imprisoned on the same charges.
The two are suspected of working with Giorgi’s former boss Pier Antonio Panzeri, a former EU lawmaker. According to arrest warrants, Panzeri is “suspected of having intervened politically with members of the European Parliament in favor of Qatar and Morocco in return for payment.”
What are the other developments in this case?
TV presenter turned politician Kaili, 44, was removed from her post in the European Parliament last week after charges were brought against her. The EU Assembly has stopped working on files relating to Qatar as it investigates what effects the bribery scandal involving cash and gifts could have had against influence. Qatar vehemently denies involvement.
The scandal came into the limelight when Qatar hosted the soccer World Cup. The small, energy-rich Gulf nation has raised its international profile as Doha used its huge offshore natural gas fields to make the country one of the richest countries in the world per capita and bolster its regional political ambitions.
Morocco has not yet responded to allegations that its ambassador to Poland may have been involved.
Belgian prosecutors are also demanding the extradition of Panzeri’s wife and daughter from Italy, where they were placed under house arrest on similar allegations.
A fourth suspect in Belgium — Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, secretary general of the non-governmental organization No Peace Without Justice — was also charged with the affair.
How did these allegations come to light for the first time?
The scandal drew public attention earlier this month after police carried out more than 20 raids, mostly in Belgium but also in Italy. Hundreds of thousands of euros were found in a house and in a suitcase in a hotel in Brussels. Cellphones, computer equipment, and data were confiscated.
Dimitrakopoulos visited the politician in jail for several hours on Wednesday. He suggested that Kaili blames her partner Georgi, with whom she has a small daughter, and that she poses no flight risk.
“She is very worried; she feels betrayed by her partner. She trusted him, he contradicted her,” Dimitrakopoulos told Greek reporters. “A person who has lost her freedom is miserable, and when a two-year-old child waits for her, who is basically an orphan because his father is also in prison, she feels even more miserable.”
According to transcripts of Giorgi’s statements before the public prosecutor’s office on December 10, which the Italian newspaper La Repubblica and the Belgian daily Le Soir said they received, Giorgi confessed that he had managed the money on behalf of an “organization” led by Panzeri.
“I did all this for the money I needed,” Giorgi told prosecutors, La Repubblica reported. He also tried to protect his partner and asked that Kaili be released from prison.