The Brussels Chamber of Indictment will examine whether the so-called 'Qatargate' probe into corruption at the European Parliament was conducted properly, the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office announced on Thursday.
For several months, the Prosecutor's Office has been conducting a large-scale investigation into alleged attempts by Qatar and Morocco to influence economic and political decision-making at the European Parliament.
Both countries are alleged to have attempted to influence the Parliament's decisions and resolutions through former Italian MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri and his non-profit organisation, Fight Impunity.
Those implicated in the case include Panzeri, his associate Francesco Giorgi, and Giorgi's partner who is the former vice-president of the European Parliament Eva Kaili. Others include Brussels-based Italian lobbyist Niccolò Figà-Talamanca, former Belgian MEPs Marc Tarabella and Marie Arena, and former Italian MEP Andrea Cozzolino.
Civil parties
In spring 2023, lawyers representing the suspects requested that the Chamber of Indictment, a chamber of the Court of Appeal, review the legality of the proceedings, but this has not yet happened.
Since then, new civil parties have joined the case. The Prosecutor's Office has requested that several civil parties be declared inadmissible, and that access to the case file be restricted to 20 of the 27 parties now involved.
In a ruling dated 25 June, the Chamber of Indictment decided that it could not judge the admissibility of the civil parties. The Prosecutor's Office would also have to decide which parties would have access to the case file and to what extent. In the same ruling, the debates on the regularity of the investigation were postponed until autumn.
On Friday, the former head of the Belgian Central Office for the Repression of Corruption Hugues Tasiaux was charged with breaching professional secrecy in connection with the probe. According to La Libre, the investigation concerns leaks in not only the Qatargate case, but other cases as well.
