Greek politician Eva Kaili, now at the center of the ‘cash for vote’ or Qatargate scandal rocking the European Parliament (EP), led the life of a movie star, according to a member of the European Parliament, quoted by the British daily The Financial Times (FT).
She spent her free time on yachts in the Aegean Sea, in trendy nightclubs in Athens, hanging out at social events with models such as Naomi Campbell and during summer vacations at tycoon Sir Richard’s Caribbean hideaway. Branson on Necker Island.
Parliamentary work involved him in roundtables with crypto billionaires and took him on trips abroad, including to Qatar before the World Cup, in addition to the more mundane task of presiding over debates as Vice-President of the European Parliament.
Now the 44-year-old former TV news presenter is locked up in a prison on the messy industrial outskirts of Brussels, under constant surveillance, enjoying just two visits a month, that of her two-year-old daughter .
- Accused by Belgian prosecutors of accepting money and gifts from Qatar in exchange for her votes +
She is accused by Belgian prosecutors of accepting money and gifts from Qatar in exchange for her votes on important parliamentary resolutions.
Is Kaili innocent, as her lawyer claims, seduced and duped by her Italian partner? Or did she take advantage of lax parliamentary oversight to line her pockets?
According to The Financial Times, Kaili’s downfall was swift and brutal. She was in the garage of her home in Brussels around 10:30 a.m. on December 9 when police arrived to arrest her companion Francesco Giorgi and seize his car.
Back at her apartment, she read an article in a local newspaper that said Giorgi, a parliamentary assistant, had been arrested along with two other people suspected of corruption, her lawyer Michalis Dimitrakopoulos said.
She knew exactly who to call: Pier Antonio Panzeri, the former MEP who once employed Giorgi and saw him frequently. He did not answer, because he too had already been arrested.
According to his lawyer, Kaili then found €300,000 in cash in the apartment. She believed the money – “a monster” as she called it – belonged to Panzeri, now the director of a human rights NGO. She called her father, who was taking care of the daughter she had had with Giorgi.
Kaili put the money in a suitcase – along with nappies and baby food – and told her father to take it to the Sofitel hotel near parliament where an unnamed Panzeri friend was expected to collect it.
The police, who were watching her, arrested her father before releasing him later in the day, but it was enough to lift Kaili’s immunity as an MEP: she had been caught “in the act”, according to the prosecutors, and was arrested and charged with corruption and money laundering.
While awaiting trial, Kaili chose to spend her time cleaning, cooking and visiting the prison library. But she was also subjected to “torture” in detention, alleges Dimitrakopoulos, according to whom she was held in a cold cell for a period of time with a bright light to keep her awake for more than 16 hours, and deprived of contact with his lawyer for three days. The latter thus filed a complaint but the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office declined to comment, according to FT.
Kaili’s descent into hell is a story of hard work and even more painstaking networking.
She was elected as a councilor in her hometown of Thessaloniki at the age of 24. Evangelos Venizelos, the future deputy prime minister, took her under his wing and two years later she got a job as a news anchor for the Greek news channel Mega TV.
Kaili was regularly photographed in Athens’ trendiest bars and restaurants in the company of TV executives and well-heeled Athenian socialites. She was seen at VIP tables in nightclubs and concert halls, often accompanied by Greek-Russian oligarch Ivan Savvidi, a former member of the Russian parliament.
She successfully ran for Greece’s national parliament with the leftist Pasok party in 2007 aged just 29, before being forced to give up her seat by the party leadership in 2012. press relations with a powerful Greek businessman who owns media and insurance companies.
Then in 2014, she was elected to the European Parliament, where she worked primarily on technology issues and cryptocurrency policy before being elected one of the 14 Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament last year. .
- Nicknamed “Queen Elizabeth” because of her haughty behavior +
In Greece, she was described in the media as a “rising EU star”, but because of her haughty behavior people who worked for her nicknamed her “Queen Elizabeth”, according to a staff member.
Panzeri, then an MEP, became an acquaintance of his, according to several current and former parliamentary officials.
Paul Tang, a Dutch MEP from Kaili’s socialist group, who has worked with her on files, and others say they grew concerned that she was too close to the crypto industry and tried to reduce its role on these issues.
Kaili was already under investigation before his arrest. On December 15, the European Public Prosecutor asked for his immunity to be waived due to suspicions of a more common parliamentary fraud: the misuse of public funds. However, his attorney, Dimitrakopoulos, declined to comment on the allegations.
Panzeri, who left parliament in 2019, admitted running a criminal enterprise and promised the court to give full details of his crimes and the involvement of others in return for a lighter sentence.
Source: article19
