European Parliament vice president charged and jailed for corruption investigation

Greek MEP Eva Kylieone of the vice-presidents of the European Parliament, was charged and jailed on Sunday in Belgium as part of an investigation into Qatar-related corruption at that institution.

Judicial source told AFP judge sent to jail Kylie and three others two days after his arrest for investigating the host country of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

The 44-year-old MP and former TV presenter could not exercise her parliamentary immunity as it was determined on Friday that the crime attributed to her had been committed “at the scene of the crime,” according to the same source, who requested anonymity.

This source confirmed press reports that Kylie she was carrying “ticket bags” on Friday night when she was detained by Belgian police.

Address in Brussels Kylie was searched on Friday evening. According to this judicial source, another socialist MEP, the Belgian Mark Tarabella, met on Saturday evening.

To assist the federal police in this second search, President eurochamber, Roberta Metsola returned from Malta in the evening, one of her representatives said. The presence of the president is necessary in actions of this nature against a MEP elected in Belgium, as “established by the Belgian Constitution”.

On Sunday, the federal prosecutor’s office did not name names, reporting on the preventive detention of the four people accused of “belonging to a criminal organization, money laundering and corruption.”

Two more of the six detainees in the last 48 hours have been released.

Among the six suspects arrested on Friday were also former Italian MP Pier-Antonio Panzeri and Secretary General of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Luca Visentini, also an Italian.

According to the Belgian press, father Kylie He was found with a large amount of cash in his suitcase.

calls for resignation

In this case, “the payment of large sums of money or significant gifts to third parties in a political and / or strategic position, which allow, within the limits European Parliamentinfluence the decisions” of this institution, the prosecutor’s office recalled on Sunday.

The problem exploded in the middle of the World Cup in Qatarwhich seeks to refute accusations of human rights abuses against the thousands of migrants who worked on stadium construction.

Kylie traveled in early November Qatarwhere he congratulated himself, along with Qatar’s labor minister, on the emirate’s reforms in the sector.

“Qatar is a leader in the field of labor rights,” the MEP said on November 22 from the rostrum of the European Chamber, causing discontent among the left benches.

On Saturday evening, the president of the institution had already decided on the first sanction against Kylie and deprived him of the functions that he delegated, including representing him in the Middle East region.

Metsola also convened a meeting of group presidents on Monday to review the Belgian judicial inquiry, two parliamentary sources told AFP on Sunday.

The environmentalist and social democrat MEPs said they would oppose starting talks on visa liberalization for Qataris in European Union (EUROPE).

Leftist MEPs, including environmentalist Philipp Lamberts on behalf of the Greens’ group European Parliamentcalled for the resignation of Kylie, expelled on Friday from the Greek Socialist Party (Pasok-Kinal). (According to AFP)