The leader of 'Qatargate' agrees to collaborate with justice in exchange for a lesser sentence

While in Strasbourg the European Parliament was debating how to improve its practices to regain public trust after the scandal of bribery to the European Parliament allegedly by Qatar and Morocco, the main defendant in the plot, the former Italian MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, agreed this Tuesday in Brussels tell everything to the Belgian justice system.

As announced by the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office, Panzeri has signed a "repentance agreement" in which he agrees to reveal all the secrets of

, the plot that has shaken the European institutions, in exchange for a limited prison sentence.

Panzeri "has undertaken to make significant, revealing, sincere and complete statements" about

, highlights the statement from the Belgian Prosecutor's Office.

The news came out on the same day that Panzeri was to appear in court to appeal the decision to keep him in pretrial detention for the scandal that broke out with a raid on December 9 in Brussels and that led to the arrest, in addition to the Italian, of the then vice president of the European Parliament Eva Kaili, of her partner and parliamentary assistant, Francesco Giorgi, and of the director of an Italian NGO linked to the plot for which it is suspected that countries such as Qatar and Morocco paid the participants in exchange for promoting resolutions and policies in Brussels in their favor, or to stop the refusals.

Finally, Panzeri did not appear on Tuesday before the judge who was to review his situation.

Instead, he signed the agreement with the Belgian courts whereby he undertakes to inform investigators of the "

, the financial agreements with third States, the financial structure created, the beneficiaries of these structures and the involvement of known persons. "

or not yet known in the file," says the Prosecutor's Office.

In exchange, the court is willing to impose a firm but "limited" prison sentence on Panzeri, who will be confiscated of all the assets illegally acquired through

, which, according to the Prosecutor's Office, amounts to at least one million euros.

euro.

This is the second time that an agreement of this type has been produced in the Belgian courts since the approval, in 2018, of the so-called “

law ” (repentant in Italian, referring to the Italian law created to combat the mafia ).

On Monday, the plenary session of the European Parliament approved in its session in Strasbourg to start the process of lifting the immunity of two other MEPs whom the Belgian justice wants to investigate around the scandal, the Italian Andrea Cozzolino and the Belgian Marc Tarabella.

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