Now is Francesco Georgi Babbling, naming names, illustrating the “price list” and reconstructing the jokes that the international euro corruption network makes the revelations out of Qatargate. This would also extend to Morocco and Mauritania. The version that the parliamentary staffer confided to the Belgian investigators nails his former boss Pier Antonio tanks and partly the companion Eva Kaili, Vice-President of the Euro Chamber, was dismissed two weeks ago. The Greek “was aware of the origin of the money” that her partner kept on behalf of Panzeri in the shared apartment on Rue Wiertz: “But Eva is a stranger to this network. In fact, he asked me several times to stop doing it. According to what Giorgi has now explained and reported by Le Soir, the privileged relationship with Qatar dates back to 2018, when Panzeri was President of the Human Rights Sub-Commission (Droi, in Brussels jargon) in the final phase of the previous European legislature. In this capacity, the former trade unionist will meet Ali ben Samikh Al Marri, former President of Qatar’s National Committee for Human Rights and current Labor Minister, for the first time. Al Marri is a recurring name in Qatargate and a constant presence in relations with Brussels: as the protagonist of a hearing on workers’ rights just before Droi, he had held bilateral talks with Kaili and with the Vice-President of the European Commission. the Greek Margaritis Schinas. The Qatari exponent approached Panzeri precisely with the aim of using the Italian network of acquaintances to assert Doha’s interests in EU buildings.
It is early the following year that the two come to an agreement and the cooperation Kick off: In the first months of 2019 “we fixed the amounts for our interventions that I have a hard time remembering”. “Cash” totals. reconstruction, that of George, which would deny what Panzeri told investigating judge Michel Claise about the partnership with Doha, which only began in autumn 2019, a few months after the end of his mandate as an MEP, when he decided to found the NGO Fight Impunity establish. . Prominent international figures have been invited to sit on the board, but the aim of the organization, according to Giorgi, is to act as a cover so as not to “sound the alarm”.
OTHER COUNTRIES
So far the relations with the Qatar, who allegedly also used Panzeri’s network to distribute airline tickets to some Eurochamber employees. Giorgi’s reconstruction also includes Morocco and Mauritania: the agreement with Rabat provided “that we work to avoid parliamentary decisions against the country in exchange for 50,000 euros”. The reference interlocutor would have been the Moroccan ambassador to Poland, Abderrahim Atmoun, who is often pictured with the two Italians. Mauritania, on the other hand, «has an image problem and has therefore turned to Panzeri. I rented my apartment (a stone’s throw from Parliament, editor’s note) to the ambassador. That was my counterpart. Panzeri, on the other hand, received 25,000 euros in cash.” Meanwhile, although not being investigated, the Dem Andrea Cozzolino has asked to be heard by investigators. Cozzolino suspended himself from posts in the S&D group and from chairing the delegation for relations with Maghreb countries.
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