New elements in the scandal surrounding the alleged bribes from Qatar and Morocco, which engulfed the European Parliament. A “mole” among the deputies themselves would have initiated the investigation. Meanwhile, Belgian judge Michel Claise, who signed the arrest warrant, has no doubts: Antonio Panzeri is the soul of Qatargate’s “huge fraudulent organisation”. And the hypothesis that – in addition to former Pd MEPs and then Article 1, former EP Vice-President Eva Kaili and her partner and pickpocket Francesco Giorgi, all three in prison – the network of MEPs and EU officials in the plot of Corruption that leads straight to Doha and Rabat is much broader and no longer denied by anyone, including federal prosecutors.
Audit of the accounts of seven Italians
Italy’s Guardia di Finanza has decided to conduct a summary audit of the accounts of seven Italians, including Panzeri, uncovering “significant” numbers. All the police and judicial authorities of the EU itself are working on the Maxi investigation: Eurojust, Europol and Olaf. And it is the Spanish socialist MEP Lopez Aguilar who does not rule out that “the origin of the investigation could be an informant in Parliament itself” because “what happens cannot be a coincidence”.
Panzeri’s relations with Morocco
So far, the allegations made in black and white in the European Arrest Warrant served at the Bergamo and Milan residences against Maria Colleoni and Silvia Panzeri, wife and daughter of the former Article 1 MP, speak of a Panzeri creator and soul of the criminal group . The former general secretary of the Milan Chamber of Labor had been going to Rabat regularly since 2011, protected but also monitored by the local authorities and the head of the Moroccan 007. And according to investigators, he has since faced Rabat’s interference together with his excavator Francesco Giorgi and the United Arab Emirates to influence EU political decisions in return for money. Money which, alongside the €1.5 million in cash traced by Belgian police, would also be present in “substantial” numbers in the first seven Italian accounts investigated by the Guardia di Finanza in execution of a European investigative order, also attributed to Francesco Guidi, ex Panzeri employees, and Luca Visentini, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, initially implicated in the operation and then released by the Belgian judiciary.
Cozzolino (Pd) suspended as a precaution
Moroccan leadership would also lead to MEP Andrea Cozzolino, president of the EP delegation for relations with Maghreb countries and the EU-Morocco joint parliamentary commissions, although he himself is in the spotlight. A possible involvement that prompted the Pd to suspend him from all party bodies as a precaution. It was the Pd’s National Guarantee Committee, urgently summoned by secretary Enrico Letta, which cautiously ceased its political activity.