(MENAFN- Newsroom Panama)
The Vice President of the European Parliament Eva Kaili is one of the four people that a Belgian judge has held under arrest and has charged Sunday for the crime of participation in a criminal organization, money laundering, and corruption in the case that links Qatar with the European Parliament, as reported by the Belgian media Le Soir and Knack.
The other three people are Kaili's colleague and adviser in the European Parliament, Francesco Giorgi, the former Italian Social Democrat MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, and a Brussels lobbyist arrested on Friday whose identity has not been disclosed.
The judge,
released on probation Kaili's father, whom the police detained on Friday while trying to escape with 600,000 euros in a bag, and the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, Luca Visentini, according to the same media.
The Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office confirmed today through a statement that the judge has indicted and kept in jail four of the six detainees in the case and released the other two, but avoided giving their names.
Meanwhile, a court in the northern Italian city of Brescia ordered the arrest of Maria Colleoni and Silvia Panzeri, wife and daughter respectively of the former Social Democrat MEP,
The Prosecutor's Office also confirmed that last night the address of a second MEP was registered, which according to the media, would be the Belgian Social Democrat Marc Tarabella.
Sources from the European Parliament also confirmed that the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, returned to Brussels Saturday from Malta, her country, to be present during the registration, as required by the Belgian Constitution.
The case has already claimed its first political victim, with Metsola's decision yesterday to suspend Kaili from her duties as an MEP, whom both the group of European Social Democrats and her Greek political party (PASOK) have removed.
The European People's Party, the Social Democrats, the Liberals, and the Greens will also call for a vote to be suspended this coming week on the liberalization of visas for Qatari citizens entering the Schengen zone.
e.