Italian MEP Andrea Cozzolino, targeted by Belgian justice in the alleged corruption scandal for the benefit of Qatar and Morocco, was placed under house arrest on Saturday and the hearing on his extradition will be held on Tuesday, according to Italian media.
The Naples Court of Appeal considered that the risk of absconding for the MEP, arrested on Friday (February 10) on leaving the clinic under a European arrest warrant in the metropolis in the south of the peninsula, was weak, according to the AGI agency.
He will also be allowed to leave his home for two hours a day, in particular to undergo treatment related to his state of health, according to the daily Il Corriere della Sera.
The Court of Appeal has also set Tuesday (February 14) the hearing on the extradition request presented by the Belgian prosecutor’s office.
Mr. Cozzolino’s lawyers have announced their intention to oppose this request on the grounds that the crimes attributed to their client are baseless, according to AGI.
His immunity, as well as that of Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella, was lifted on February 2 by a vote of the European Parliament.
According to a parliamentary report, Mr. Cozzolino, who until January was chairman of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with the Maghreb, ” is suspected of having participated in an agreement with other people which provided for collaboration in order to protect the interests of foreign states in the European Parliament”.
And this “in particular by preventing the adoption of parliamentary resolutions which could harm the interests of these States, in exchange for sums of money”.
In this vast case of corruption, the Belgian investigators got their hands on 1.5 million euros in cash, seized from the homes of Pier Antonio Panzeri, a former socialist MEP who became a leader of an NGO and who is a central figure in this history, and Greek socialist MEP Eva Kaili, as well as in a suitcase carried by her father.
Like Mr. Panzeri, Ms. Kaili is imprisoned, as is her companion, the Italian Francesco Giorgi, parliamentary assistant. They are charged with “belonging to a criminal organization” , “money laundering” and “corruption”.
MEP Marc Tarabella, the first Belgian personality implicated in this scandal, was charged and remanded in custody on Saturday
Another Italian implicated, Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, an NGO official who had stepped down from his duties as secretary general of the NGO “No Peace Without Justice” on December 12 after his imprisonment, was handed over released a week ago.
source: euractiv