World
EU corruption scandal: Inspector’s leaked secret remarks threaten case
A secretly recorded conversation, to which Euronews has had access, shows a leading police investigator in the so-called Qatargate probe questioning the integrity of both the repentant and the judges.
Suspect Francesco Giorgi – the partner of socialist MEP Eva Kaili, also under investigation in the sprawling graft probe – secretly recorded a conversation with senior Belgian policeman Ceferino Alvarez Rodriguez when he visited Giorgi’s apartment in May last year.
In the recording, which Euronews has obtained, Alvarez Rodriguez accuses former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, the suspected ringleader who has struck a deal with Belgian authorities to reveal all about the corruption case, of lying.
“We don’t believe anything he says,” a transcript of the conversation reads. “We know very well that he is fooling us, we know it. But it’s all going to blow up.”
“When it will blow, it will blow.”
The conversation in French, recorded on Giorgi’s phone, also shows Alvarez Rodriguez complaining about politically-appointed judges.
“I have no trust in the judiciary because justice is pulled by strings, by politicians,” he is reported to have said.
“We cannot trust the judiciary,” he added.
Alvarez Rodriguez worked hand-in-hand with the former judge on the case, Michel Claise, who was forced to step down last June following allegations he was not impartial.
It was revealed that Claise’s son was a business partner to the son of Maria Arena, another socialist MEP embroiled in the scandal but who has not been formally charged, in a medicinal cannabis company.
According to the prosecutor’s office, Claise stepped down “as a matter of caution,” and to “maintain the necessary separation between private and family life and professional responsibilities.”
The recorded conversation, which Giorgi’s legal team has asked to be considered as fresh legal evidence in the case, adds further turmoil to efforts to prosecute the suspects. The numerous debacles in the Belgian investigation have led many to brand the case as ‘Belgium-gate’.
The conversation between Giorgi and Alvarez Rodriguez allegedly took place on May 3 last year, when the investigator stopped by to return Giorgi’s phone, which had been seized during his hearing just days earlier on April 27.
During the visit, Giorgi complained about his laptop, which included confidential notes he drafted with his lawyer, being confiscated by police officers during a search warranted by judge Claise while Giorgi was attending his court hearing on April 27, saying it violated his right to defence.
Responding to Giorgi’s complaints, investigator Alvarez Rodriguez reportedly repeated twice, “that’s the game.”
According to the transcript, the investigator also claims it’s “normal” for his team to have access to Giorgi’s confidential notes, as their content proves that Giorgi has also gained access to their own investigative files.
“You adapt your speech to what is in the file,” the investigator reportedly told Giorgi. “That’s why we don’t put everything in. We’re not idiots, so we know you’re lying to us.”
In a statement, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office acknowledged the comments attributed to the police officer.
In relation to Panzeri, it said that its investigation involves “verifying the veracity of the statements made by the repentant,” to check whether they comply with the legal requirements for obtaining the repentant status.
The statement adds that “a procedure is currently pending before an independent body (…) to examine the legality of a certain number of investigative acts carried out.”
The transcript of the conversation is one of three files Giorgi’s lawyers have presented to be considered as new evidence in the investigation, according to a document seen by Euronews. They also include the original recording, in video format, as well as a subtitled video prepared by Giorgi.
The corruption scandal saw Giorgi, his partner Kaili and Panzeri accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of euros from Qatari and Moroccan officials in exchange for influencing the decisions of the European Parliament. Both countries have vehemently the allegations.
The case has sent shockwaves across Brussels and forced the European Parliament to clamp down on lax rules on staff conduct.
While both Panzeri and Giorgi have admitted wrongdoing, Kaili continues to defend her innocence.
World
Paramount Global Set to Unveil New Leadership Structure; Anxiety Runs High on Earnings Eve
As turmoil continues to surround the future of Paramount Global, details surrounding interim leadership and its proposed Skydance deal are coming to light, multiple sources told Variety.
Sunday was a consequential day in Shari Redstone’s ongoing exclusive bargaining window with David Ellison‘s Skydance, one that would see the Hollywood scion take majority ownership of Paramount Global and its owner National Amusements Inc. Skydance offered its “best and final” offer to Redstone on Sunday, sources added.
On the eve of its quarterly earnings call, two insiders familiar with Paramount Global said the board is expected to announce a new leadership committee to replace ousted CEO Bob Bakish. Expected to be named to these leadership roles are Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins, CBS chief executive George Cheeks and MTV Entertainment Group President Chris McCarthy, the sources said.
Multiple insiders close to Paramount’s ongoing sales process said that letting Bakish go was the right move, but the new leadership structure is problematic at this fragile moment. There will not be a sole leader guiding the corporation through a potential sales process, said the insiders, and Cheeks, Robbins and McCarthy are not accustomed to collaboration across their portfolios. All details that are raising internal and external anxiety. There is, of course, Redstone — who is being closely watched by Wall Street and the media sector.
A third source familiar with the company said Redstone has been resolute in preferring the Skydance bid, which promises to keep her family media empire in tact and on track to provide future shareholder value. Or, she could appease some of her shareholders and evaluate a competing offer from Apollo and Sony Entertainment — a deal that would call for major structural changes, with asset liquidation and job losses likely. And that’s if that scenario could survive inevitable regulatory scrutiny.
Heading into earnings, the company has yet to disclose whether its network carriage deal with Charter, the country’s second largest cable operator next to Comcast, has been renewed. It is set to expire April 30.
The flurry of weekend activity is sure to weigh heavy on Paramount Global’s share price on Monday, and change the economics of any potential sale. Paramount Global is scheduled to report first quarter 2024 results tomorrow after market close. The earnings call with analysts — sans Bakish but possibly with the new leadership team — is set to start at 4:30 p.m. ET.
World
Lawmakers call for release of Putin’s ‘political prisoner number one'
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers marked the two-year anniversary of Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza’s imprisonment by calling for his immediate release.
Kara-Murza, who lives in solitary confinement in a Siberian maximum-security prison, was sentenced to 25 years last April for treason and other related charges as Russian authorities continue their crackdown on domestic dissent.
The Moscow City Court claimed Kara-Murza was guilty of “high treason“ for “disseminating knowingly false information about the Russian Armed Forces” when he delivered a speech to the Arizona House of Representatives in 2022 that criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
His sentence is the longest term handed down to a political prisoner in the post-Soviet era.
Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Roger Wicker, R-Miss., co-led a group of 80 bipartisan lawmakers urging the Biden administration to declare the Russian dissident as “unlawfully and wrongfully detained.”
Fox News Digital obtained a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Cardin and other lawmakers demanding Kara-Murza’s release and the aforementioned designation.
“There is little time left to end the ongoing and unjust detention of U.S. Legal Permanent Resident and Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza,” the letter read in part. “Mr. Kara-Murza’s family has grave concerns that he may not survive much longer. His situation is even more perilous following the killing of Alexei Navalny. Mr. Kara-Murza is the most prominent imprisoned democracy activist still alive in Russia.”
The State Department referred Fox News Digital to spokesperson Matthew Miller’s remarks on Kara-Murza’s two-year imprisonment anniversary but did not provide specifics when asked about efforts to give the Russian opposition leader the designation sought by U.S. lawmakers.
“The Department of State continuously reviews the circumstances surrounding the detentions of U.S. nationals overseas, including those in Russia, for indicators that they are wrongful. When making assessments, the Department conducts a legal, fact-based review that looks into the totality of the circumstances for each case individually,” a spokesperson said.
Russian human rights lawyer and the Center for European Policy Analysis’ Democracy Fellow Grigory Vaypan told Fox News Digital that Kara-Murza is now Russia’s “prisoner number one.”
AMERICAN BALLERINA WITH DUAL CITIZENSHIP ARRESTED IN RUSSIA, FACING LIFE IN PRISON FOR DONATING $51 TO UKRAINE
“He’s definitely political prisoner number one on Putin’s list, and his life is certainly in danger now that we see with the murder of Navalny that Putin’s regime demonstrates to the world that it’s willing to kill political prisoners in Russia,” Vaypan said.
He added that Kara-Murza, who was reportedly poisoned twice in 2015 and 2017 by agents of the Russian state, is essentially on “Putin’s death row.”
“His health is deteriorating. He has never fully recovered from the effects of those two poisonings. Now, he is not only in prison, he’s on solitary confinement, which is basically indefinite. He can be in his tiny prison cell for many months, and with the effects of those two poisonings, his health is getting worse,” Vaypan explained. “This is why it would be fair to say that he’s essentially on Putin’s death row now.”
Memorial, Russia’s oldest human rights group, counts roughly 700 political prisoners in Russia today.
Political prisoners are further isolated and punished in an effort to prevent them from continuing to speak out against the Russian authorities. They can be put into solitary confinement, deprived of food, mail, phone calls with relatives or family visits.
RUSSIAN POET SENTENCED TO 7 YEARS IN PRISON FOR RECITING VERSES AGAINST WAR IN UKRAINE
“There’s a wide array of those measures that the Russian prison authorities can resort to. And we’re increasingly seeing that, especially after the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion [of] Ukraine, we’ve seen more people jailed for exercising their right to free speech,” Vaypan told Fox News Digital. “And we’ve seen an increasing number of people being further harassed and pressured even while in prison.”
Kara-Murza’s wife, Evgenia, reflected on the deaths of other Russian opposition figures like Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov at the hands of the Putin regime.
“[They] target the most courageous, the most principled, those Russians who risk not only their freedom but very often their lives to show you that Russia can be different,” she said at an event on Capitol Hill.
“As my husband put it, and I quote, ‘It is my hope that when people in the free world today think and speak about Russia, they will remember not only the war criminals who are sitting in the Kremlin but also those who are standing up to them because we are Russians too.’”
World
At least four dead in US after dozens of tornadoes rip through Oklahoma
Hospitals across the state reported about 100 injuries, including people apparently struck by debris.
At least four people were killed and dozens more injured after multiple tornadoes wreaked havoc in the central state of Oklahoma in the United States.
The tornadoes caused extensive damage in the town of Sulphur, home to about 5,000 people, flattened buildings, threw vehicles into the air and ripped the roofs from houses.
“You just can’t believe the destruction,” Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt said during a visit to the hard-hit town on Sunday afternoon. “It seems like every business downtown has been destroyed.”
A four-month-old baby was among the dead, Hughes County Emergency Management Director Mike Dockrey told Oklahoma television station KOCO.
Stitt said about 30 people were injured, including some who were in a bar when the tornado struck.
Hospitals across the state reported about 100 injuries, including people apparently cut or struck by debris, and more than 20,000 residents were still without electricity on Sunday evening.
Stitt issued an executive order declaring a state of emergency in 12 counties due to the severe weather, while in a call with the Oklahoma governor, President Joe Biden offered the federal government’s full support with recovery efforts, the White House said in a statement.
The National Weather Service (NWS) reported that 38 possible tornadoes hit the area and that the worst of the storms rolled through Central Oklahoma on Saturday into early Sunday morning, spreading into northwest Texas, western Missouri and Kansas.
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