Lawyer: Qatargate evidence called into question after top judge resigns

The resignation of top judge Michel Claise due to a conflict of interest puts the entire judicial investigation into the Qatargate corruption scandal into question, a Brussels-based lawyer told EURACTIV.com.

“The news of Michel Claise’s resignation is disruptive because the entire judicial investigation is now in doubt,” lawyer Spyros Pappas said.

Claise, the Belgian judge leading the Qatargate investigation, resigned this week after it was revealed one of his sons had set up a company in 2018 with the son of Belgian MEP Maria Arena, who is also reportedly involved in the scandal.

“From the moment the judicial investigation became known, the recurring question was why MEP Maria Arena, who appears from the file as a regular interlocutor of Mr. Antonio Panzeri, remained in the dark. Today’s revelation, if true, is at least sad. A judge must be strict with himself and lenient with others,” Pappas said.

Arena has never been questioned or charged in the Qatargate investigation despite her name appearing in the case file.

He added that when a judge, for some personal reasons, cannot remain objective, he declares an exception so that a colleague can replace him.

Pappas stressed that it would be wrong to conclude that improper handling of a case should lead to a general conclusion about Belgium’s justice system, which he said is independent and objective.

“But every digression serves as a reminder for the future. From this point of view, the system comes out strengthened,” he said.

Pappas hinted that the entire process of collecting evidence might be called into question considering an alleged “cover-up” of a culprit and transferring responsibility to others without an important person being examined for the scandal.

The lawyer, who defends Greek MEP Eva Kaili – also involved in the Qatargate and in another case related to her assistants’ salaries in the European Parliament – added:

“If one adds that the members of the PEGA committee, and in particular Ms. Kaili, were under surveillance by several secret services long before the Qatargate case became known, all the evidence is irrelevant since it was collected against breach of parliamentary immunity”.

However, a thorny issue remains the suitcase with thousands of euros of cash found in Kaili’s apartment.

According to legal circles, it will be difficult for Kaili to convince Belgian authorities that she had nothing to do with it. She has so far claimed that it belonged to former MEP Pier-Antonio Panzeri and she was not aware of the suitcase’s content until the scandal erupted.

For Pappas, though, the way it was discovered was a violation of her parliamentary immunity.

Lawyer says lifting MEP Kaili’s immunity was ‘illegal’

Greek lawyer Spyros Pappas has filed an appeal to the General Court of the EU against the European Public Prosecutor’s decision to request the lifting of the immunity of MEP Eva Kaili, claiming that it was illegal because none of the conditions for such a move were met.

‘A lot of questions’

Meanwhile, MEP Marc Tarabella’s lawyer Maxim Töller, who unveiled Claise’s conflict of interest, now points the finger at the alleged “mastermind” behind the Qatargate, Pier-Antonio Panzeri, and particularly his relations with MEP Arena.

Invited to speak on Belgian TV channel RTL on Tuesday, Töller pointed out that Arena (S&D) had been declared innocent from the very beginning by Panzeri, who had stated that she had nothing to do with the corruption system when he signed a repentance agreement with the Belgian justice.

However, for Marc Tarabella’s lawyer, the relationship between Arena and Panzeri raises questions because, “according to information coming from all sides”, this relationship is “more significant than has been described so far”.

According to him, this element casts doubt on Panzeri’s words, on which the lawyer has always expressed reservations.

Panzeri has made a deal with the Belgian justice to speak out and describe the scandal’s details in exchange for a softer sentence.

Meanwhile, on Monday evening, the investigating judge Claude questioned Italian MEP Andrea Cozzolino. The Socialist MEP – whose immunity was lifted and who was excluded from his EP party (S&D) at the same time as Tarabella – was arrested four months ago in Italy in the framework of the investigation.

He was since then under judicial supervision in Italy pending the execution of a European arrest warrant.

After further questioning, Claise was expected to rule on Cozzolino’s possible arrest on Tuesday but he decided to step down.

In Töller’s view, there are “many questions to be asked” in the way this investigation was led, particularly about Judge Claise’s impartiality, as Arena’s name was mentioned “from the very first day” of the investigation, which could suggest that he concealed this conflict of interest which he surely knew about before.

“There is a potential conflict of interest, which is aggravated by the fact that the accountant for these two young men’s company is also the accountant who was searched because he is the accountant for companies and non-profit organisations that have a relationship with Panzeri,” Töller added, according to RTBF.

“We had been wondering for quite some time why Panzeri’s word had not been verified, why the evidence, both incriminating and exculpatory, had not been verified, since the only evidence against Tarabella was Panzeri’s word,” the lawyer continued.

“When we asked ourselves these questions when we thought about these elements, little by little we identified certain elements, certain problems that seem to us to justify the recusal, or deferral in this case, of the investigating judge,” he added.

(Sarantis Michalopoulos, Anne-Sophie Gayet | EURACTIV.com)