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MEP Eva Kaili starts legal challenge over the lifting of her immunity
Eva Kaili, the Greek MEP at the heart of a corruption scandal gripping the European Parliament, is taking the Belgian justice system to court alleging the country’s police and secret services violated her parliamentary immunity.
Kaili, who was arrested last December and charged with corruption, launched her case on Tuesday in a Brussels court. She is following in the footsteps of two other MEPs involved in the scandal, Belgium’s Marc Tarabella and Italy’s Andrea Cozzolino, who have launched similar lawsuits.
The three of them, as well as Kaili’s domestic partner and former parliamentary assistant Francesco Giorgi and three-term socialist Pier Antonio Panzeri, are accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of euros from Qatari and Moroccan officials in exchange for influencing the decision of the European Parliament.
Panzeri has confessed to taking part in a criminal organisation and shared details with prosecutors in exchange for leniency for him and his family. The others, as well as Qatar and Morocco, reject all accusations.
If the courts side with them and rule that their parliamentary immunities were violated the entire corruption case against them, known as Qatargate, could collapse.
“All parties involved, including Eva Kaili, have objected to the legality of the criminal proceedings to date,” Kaili’s Greek lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, told reporters on Tuesday.
“The objections are based on two pillars. One is that Eva Kaili’s right to immunity from the Belgian secret services has been violated and that this entails the absolute nullity of the proceedings.”
“The second and most fundamental objection is that the investigator in the case, Michel Claise, had a basic stumbling block to not being an investigator,” he added, citing the ties Claise’s son has to another MEP involved in the scandal.
“This affects the impartiality of the investigator and he should have resigned. If this had happened on Greek territory he would have been an accused,” he said.
Kaili, who spent four months in jail followed by one month of house arrest under electronic surveillance, was kicked out of the Socialists & Democrats groups and stripped of her Vice-President position at the European Parliament but she returned to plenary in Strasbourg as an unaffiliated MEP in July.
On Tuesday, she attended a hearing of the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) discussing the request of the European Prosecutor (EPPO) to lift her immunity in relation to another case. She is accused of committing fraud in relation to the management of her parliamentary allowance, in particular for the compensation of assistants.
The hearing was confidential and kept behind closed doors.
Kaili’s lawyer for EU affairs, Spiros Pappas, said this case “does not concern the case of Kaili only, it is a case concerning the functioning of European democracy.”
“I can say, and it may sound a little bit too much that at this moment, the European democracy, the European Union, is under scrutiny under surveillance, without exaggeration. So I think that the case in general is a good case, not the case that was discussed today exclusively, but I think that both cases are interconnected,” he also said.
The decision of the Legal Affairs Committee is expected by November. However, the one in Belgian Justice is expected to be delayed, even to 2024.
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3 bodies found in search for US and Australian surfers who mysteriously vanished in Mexico
Three bodies have been discovered in a popular Mexican tourist area where an American and two Australians suddenly vanished last week having been on an apparent camping and surfing trip, the local prosecutor’s office said in a statement late on Friday.
American Jack Carter Rhoad, 30, as well as Australian brothers Callum Robinson, 33, and Jake Robinson, 30, were last seen on April 27, the Baja California state prosecutor’s office previously announced. They did not show up at their planned accommodation last weekend.
Investigators discovered three bodies dumped in a pit while searching for the trio on Friday, although officials have not confirmed if the bodies are those of the missing men.
2 AMERICANS FOUND DEAD IN HOTEL ROOM IN MEXICO’S BAJA CALIFORNIA
Forensic tests on the remains will be conducted by a state laboratory, which will allow for positive identification of the bodies, the prosecutor’s office said in its statement.
Investigators continue to search the rugged area where the bodies were found for additional evidence, the statement added.
The bodies were found in a rugged hillside area in Baja California near the popular tourist town of Ensenada, about 90 minutes south of the U.S.-Mexico border. Video from the scene shows rescuers installing ropes to enter the pit where the bodies were discovered. The site is seen cordoned off by police while a navy boat was also visible in the sea nearby.
The site where the bodies were discovered near the township of Santo Tomás was near the remote seaside area where the missing men’s tents and the burned-out Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck were found Thursday on a remote stretch of coast.
It is unclear what types of injuries the victims suffered or how they died.
“There is a lot of important information that we can’t make public,” María Elena Andrade Ramírez, the chief state prosecutor said.
Baja California prosecutors said Friday that three people had been arrested and charged with a crime equivalent to kidnapping. It was unclear if they might face more charges.
Ensenada Mayor Carlos Ibarra Aguiar said in a news release that a 23-year-old woman had been detained with drugs and a cellphone that had a wallpaper photo of one of the missing men, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Officials didn’t specify how the three people were connected to the investigation, saying only that some were directly involved and others indirectly.
LUXURY RESORT SHUTTERS IN MEXICO’S BAJA CALIFORNIA AFTER MYSTERIOUS DEATHS OF 2 AMERICANS
Investigators said that a missing persons report was filed 48 hours after the men were last seen, although the prosecutor’s office began investigating as soon as posts began circulating on social media.
María Elena Andrade Ramírez, the chief state prosecutor, said that while drug cartels are active in the area, she said, “all lines of investigation are open at this time. We cannot rule anything out until we find them.”
The Baja California Attorney General’s Office has said that it has maintained contact with the FBI and relatives of the victims, through consular agencies.
On Wednesday, the missing Australians’ mother, Debra Robinson, posted on a local community Facebook page an appeal for help in finding her sons and noted that Callum is diabetic.
The Australian media reports that Jake is a doctor, while Callum lives in San Diego and is a member of Australia’s national lacrosse team.
The State Department’s travel advisory lists Baja California under its “reconsider travel” category due to crime and kidnapping.
In 2015, two Australian surfers, Adam Coleman and Dean Lucas, were killed in western Sinaloa state, across the Gulf of California — also known as the Sea of Cortez— from the Baja peninsula. Authorities say they were victims of highway bandits.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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German social democrats promise not to join forces with the right
German social democrats spoke out against far right violence amid declining support after an attack on Friday night that hospitalised Saxony top candidate for the EU elections Matthias Ecke.
Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Europe held a democracy congress in Berlin as a show of force against the far right that is gaining traction across Europe.
SPD has been polling at a historical low following an economically rocky few years, but the party is now ramping up efforts to win back support after violent far-right attacks continue to increase.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged voters not to vote for far-right parties.
“Democracy is threatened by such things, and therefore, accepting them with a shrug of the shoulders is never an option. We must stand together against it,” he said.
Scholz also warned against further right wing attacks, and added, “that this is directed against local politicians and mayors in small towns and cities. Democracy is threatened by such things,” pointing to an attack on a 28-year-old campaigner for the Greens, that appears to be by the same group.
Ecke is currently in hospital awaiting surgery for his injuries.
Speeches, lead by European social democratic leader Stefan Loefven and the centre-left candidate to head the European Commission, Nicolas Schmit, saw politicians vow not to collaborate with far-right parties if coalitions needed to be built.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party condemned the attack on Ecke.
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