The Democratic Party (PD) announced Friday that Andrea Cozzolino MEP, head of the European Parliament delegation for relations with the Maghreb, has been suspended «precautionary» as a member of the Italian center-left formation in the framework of the ‘Qatargate’ scandal.
«The deputies resolved to suspend the honorable Andrea Cozzolino from the PD’s register of affiliates and voters, as well as from all the party bodies of which he may eventually be a member,» the party said in a statement.
The decision, taken by the National Commission of Guarantees, will be in force «until the closure of the investigations in progress by the Judiciary» and aims, as the party has defended, «to protect the image» of the PD, led by former Prime Minister Enrico Letta.
Francesco Giorgi, partner of the former vice president of the European Parliament Eva Kaili and arrested in the operation against corruption for bribes paid by Qatar, implicated Cozzolino on Thursday in a statement to the Police.
As reported by the newspaper ‘Le Soir’, Giorgi, Cozzolino’s parliamentary assistant, acknowledged his role in the organization used by Qatar to bribe MEPs and assistants of the European Parliament to gain political and economic weight in the EU.
In this way, he assured that he was in charge of managing the payments, indicating that both Cozzolino and the Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella benefited from the scheme through the Italian ex-parliamentarian Pier Antonio Panzeri.
Documents to which the Belgian newspaper had access show that Panzeri, Cozzolino and Giorgi had contacts with Moroccan intelligence and the Moroccan ambassador to Poland, Abderrahim Atmun. In the framework of the operation, the Belgian police found more than 1.5 million euros in cash during the searches of the partner of the former vice-president of the European Parliament Eva Kaili, and of Panzeri.
It was the arrest of the father of the Greek socialist in a hotel in Brussels with a suitcase full of «several hundred thousand euros» in cash that served to demonstrate the «flagrant crime» and this allowed the authorities to arrest the then vice president, who was removed from office on Tuesday in a vote of the European Parliament.
The court of first instance in Brussels on Wednesday extended the remand ordered on several of those arrested in the plot. In the case of Kaili, he will also remain in prison at least until he appears in court next Thursday, December 22.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
