It began as the EU’s biggest graft scandal in decades, with high-profile arrests, startling revelations and the seizure of €1.5mn in cash.
But one year on, the European parliament’s so-called Qatargate affair is bogged down in legal counter-probes that have called into question the Belgian authorities’ management of the case and delayed any potential trial.
The main suspect in the case, Antonio Panzeri, has admitted to taking at least €2mn in bribes from Qatar and Morocco in exchange for political favours and friendly EU resolutions towards both countries. While his confession initially led to further arrests, a trial date has not been set, suspects have been released and their legal teams have successfully challenged Belgian prosecutors and their investigative methods.
Eva Kaili, the most senior EU lawmaker identified as a suspect in the case, was arrested in December 2022 during the unprecedented police action against current and former MEPs. Her parliamentary immunity was voided when police stopped her father at a Brussels hotel carrying a suitcase containing €750,000 in cash.
She has maintained her innocence throughout, spending two and half months in jail as she refused to enter a plea bargain with the prosecution.
In an interview with the Financial Times, she said that her legal team triggered a judicial review into the legitimacy of her arrest on grounds that her immunity was lifted illegally. The case she brought against the Belgian authorities was also joined by several other suspects, effectively delaying a potential trial.
Kaili accused the Belgian criminal justice system of relying on “extorted confessions where facts do not matter”. Rather than Qatargate, “this is a Belgiangate”, she added, “the methods are really shocking”.
“I think it’s time to fight back.”
MEPs can have their immunity lifted without a vote in the parliament if they are caught in the act of committing a crime. Belgian authorities said Kaili’s father was acting on her behalf and the money he was carrying was proof of her corruption.
Kaili said the money in the bag belonged to Panzeri. Her father, she said, volunteered to hand it over to a contact of Panzeri in a hotel and give her room to think, after seeing she was distressed by the arrest of her partner, Francesco Giorgi.
Police also seized more than €150,000 in cash from their flat, which she said was money Panzeri owed Giorgi and was gradually paying him back.
“I never had any relation with this money,” she said.
Giorgi had worked for Panzeri as a parliamentary assistant until 2019 and continued to collaborate with him from the parliament when the former EU lawmaker set up a human rights NGO called Fight Impunity. Giorgi is the father of Kaili’s child and was arrested in the morning of December 9 2022 along with Panzeri.
Kaili admitted that she “panicked” when she couldn’t reach Giorgi and called another MEP, Maria Arena, to get Panzeri’s number and let him know that she was returning his “stuff”. Arena told her she would “get Panzeri the best lawyer in Belgium”, Kaili said.
Arena, a Belgian national, was one of the MEPs on the Belgian security services’ radar for several months before the arrests, given her close ties to Panzeri, according to wiretaps and the intelligence service reports that triggered the investigation and were seen by the FT.
One report compiled by the Belgian federal police based on intelligence gathered by the secret service describes the MEP as playing “a particularly important role” in the corruption ring where she allegedly worked “closely with Panzeri on behalf of Qatar”.
“Arena benefits from the advice and the influence of Panzeri and he uses Arena’s position as chair of the human rights subcommittee in the European parliament to exercise his influence,” the secret service said in the report.
Arena resigned as chair of the human rights subcommittee in January and police searched neighbouring apartments belonging to her and her son in July. Belgian prosecutors have not designated her as a formal suspect. She has maintained her innocence, with her lawyers calling the accusations against her “unfounded and inaccurate”.
Some €280,000 in cash was seized during those raids at the flat of her son, Ugo Lemaire, according to people close to the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Arena is not, in any way, connected to the sum of money,” said her lawyers, Michèle Hirsch and Morgan Bonneure.
Last month authorities said they were not planning to request her immunity be lifted at that time. Her legal team said that meant prosecutors were “not considering, over a year after the investigation started, to prosecute . . . Arena before a court.”
The investigative judge who led the probe at the time of the arrests, Michel Claise, was forced to step aside this summer over potential conflicts of interest after it emerged that his son was in business with Lemaire. The federal prosecutor in charge of the case, Raphael Malagnini, also resigned in October to take up another job.
Arena’s sons Ugo and Luca Lemaire were placed under surveillance and their international trips from 2019 on were scrutinised, according to a police report sent to judge Claise on April 26 2023 seen by the FT.
The report shows Ugo travelled to Morocco at the end of 2022, after the Qatargate scandal exploded, and Arena had reached out to Abderrahim Atmoun, the Moroccan diplomat who allegedly bribed Panzeri, according to the security service reports that triggered the investigation.
“Atmoun proposed [Arena] to help [Lemaire] specifying ‘uncle Atmoun’ would be there,” the police wrote in the report.
Bonneure, Arena’s lawyer, said these were “partial excerpts of conversations that did happen but that have nothing to do with any wrongdoing” and warned against “misinterpretations”.
Lemaire’s lawyer declined to comment. Panzeri’s lawyer and a spokesperson for the Moroccan foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Kaili accused Belgian authorities of double standards. “There has been a presumption of innocence for one person in spite of all the evidence in the case file that is there for everyone to see, and a presumption of guilt for the rest of us,” she said.
Belgian intelligence described Kaili’s role in the Panzeri network as unclear, besides being Giorgi’s partner, stating they were unable to prove her direct involvement in the criminal organisation, according to the 2022 secret service report.
In July, Belgian authorities speaking on condition of anonymity said further evidence against her had been gathered after those 2022 reports.
Kaili said her lawyers only got access to the full case file in September and realised “there is absolutely nothing on me”.
She also rejected allegations in recent media reports that she led an influence campaign on behalf of Qatar to lift EU’s visa requirements for the Gulf state.
“I acted in alignment with the cabinet of [European parliament president Roberta] Metsola and [EU foreign policy chief Josep] Borrell . . . it’s parliamentary activity,” she said.
Belgium’s federal police declined to comment. The federal prosecutor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.