2023-11-29 18:42:00
In recent days, information revealed in the press (Belgian and international) in the so-called Qatargate affair – an alleged corruption scandal within the European Parliament – has multiplied. La Libre notably reported on the police reports concerning the Belgian MEP, Marie Arena, whose name is mentioned numerous times in the file, even if the socialist was not heard by the judicial authorities.
Numerous sources had also mentioned, to La Libre, the imminence of a request to lift Marie Arena’s parliamentary immunity for a long time. Intention expressed first by the investigating judge Michel Claise. Then by the investigating judge Aurélie Déjaiffe, who took over the case after the withdrawal of judge Claise.
All these revelations are not to the taste of the federal prosecutor’s office which decided to communicate this Wednesday to take stock.
No justification, for now
“Justice must be able to carry out its work with peace of mind,” recalled the public prosecutor in its press release. There is no need at this stage of the investigation, which is supposed to be secret, to expose the investigation strategies, even if the constant leaks that we deplore once again lead to often risky interpretations. As a reminder, multiple authorities, at different levels, participate in permanent internal control of the legal procedure.”
And to specify, then, that “the federal prosecutor’s office considers, given the importance of the investigative means already at its disposal, that a lifting of parliamentary immunity (of Marie Arena, Editor’s note) is not justified at all. ‘actual hour”.
However, this does not prevent the continuation of investigations into this vast file. The federal prosecutor’s office also recalled that “the vast majority of acts of information or instruction do not require a request for lifting of parliamentary immunity in the case of a Belgian parliamentarian sitting in a Belgian or European assembly” “The principle is that of freedom to instruct. Only acts of information or instruction requiring constraint involve special formalities and require, for example, the intervention of the first president of the court of appeal.”
If, for the moment, there is no question of a lifting of immunity, nothing says that the procedure will not be initiated soon. Because the Belgian MEP remains at the heart of the investigations.
Qatargate: “According to State Security, Marie Arena appears to have received a Rolex and a necklace from the Qatari authorities”
An interest of investigators
Moreover, even if Marie Arena is not the subject of prosecution, this did not prevent investigators from looking in depth at the role she played in the ecosystem of Antonio Panzeri, the alleged mastermind of Qatargate of whom she was a close friend. In a document that La Libre was able to read, we see that numerous exchanges between Panzeri and Arena were collected and then analyzed by the authorities.
The document in question is in fact an eleven-page police report, containing information from a State Security note. The file lists in particular a series of exchanges (telephone tapping or written messages) between Panzeri and Arena. The discussions concern several countries (including Qatar) with which the protagonists have had contact. It’s also about money.
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