According to Belgian newspaper Le Soir, Qatari officials had tried to bribe an elected Italian socialist who was an MEP from 2004 to 2019.
Megaton scandal in Brussels. Four people, including a former MEP, were arrested today Friday in the Belgian capital, as part of an investigation by an economic judge on suspicion of bribery from a “Gulf country”, inside the European Parliament, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office announced.
The country is not named by the prosecution. According to the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, Qatari officials had tried to bribe an elected Italian socialist who was an MEP from 2004 to 2019.
The investigation concerns, among other things, acts of “corruption” and “money laundering” in the context of an organized gang, according to the press release of the prosecution.
For months, Belgian investigators “suspected that a Gulf country influenced the economic and political decisions of the European Parliamentpaying significant sums of money or offering significant gifts to third parties with a political position and/or an important strategic position’ within that body.
The identities of those arrested were not released by the federal prosecutor’s office, which has jurisdiction in Belgium over terrorism and organized crime cases.
In the morning, as part of this investigation by a judge in Brussels, sixteen searches were carried out by the police in various municipalities of the Belgian capital (where the European Parliament is based).
In addition to the four arrests, police seized “approximately €600,000 in cash” as well as “computer equipment and mobile phones” whose contents will be examined.
“This business it particularly targeted parliamentary assistants who work in the European Parliament. Among those arrested is a former MEP”, the prosecution emphasized.
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