A plot of land on Paros which is owned by MEP Eva Kaili and her companion Francesco Giorgi, who have both been arrested on corruption charges, was frozen on Thursday by order of the Greek authority against money laundering.
Additionally, a joint bank account held by Kaili and Giorgi, through which they bought the plot on Paros, was also frozen. The property was frozen in the context of an inquiry into possible money laundering that was also taking place in Greece.
In Brussels, meanwhile, Belgian judicial authorities are to make a decision on Thursday on whether Kaili should remain in custody while the investigation into allegations of corruption involving Qatar continues, in a case that led to her being stripped of her role as a European Parliament vice president.
Meanwhile, the Greek MEP admitted she asked her father to recover a vast sum of money from her house after learning that it was a bribe, her lawyer has revealed.
The 44-year-old is expected to admit to a judicial hearing tomorrow she told her father to get rid of the “dirty money”, to the value of €750,000, after her husband was arrested on suspicion of taking bribes from Qatar in exchange for favourable coverage in the European parliament.
Kaili insists she “has never in her life taken a bribe” and only learnt about the contents of her suitcase from her partner after he was arrested.
Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, Kaili’s lawyer in Greece, told a local radio station his client instructed colleagues of her husband to take the “dirty money” back after she allegedly found out about the corruption.
The colleagues of Kaili’s husband to which Dimitrakopoulos referred are believed to be Pier Antonio Panzeri, the head of “Fight Impunity”, a Brussels-based human rights lobby group, and his peers.
Belgian prosecutors are accusing Kaili, her husband Francesco Giorgi, 35, Panzeri and Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, an Italian human rights lobbyist who has been released on bail, of running a corruption and bribery network to influence European Union decisions to the benefit of Qatar.
Dimitrakopoulos said: “When her husband was arrested, it was in a nearby area in the garage, they were together. It was not announced what the reason [for the arrest] was.
“At that moment, she learned about the contents of the suitcase from her partner. One option was to turn him in to the police, the second was to take the money to its owner. She has no obligation to report her husband under European law.
“She called her father to come. ‘Come on now, take these things, go to your room in the hotel, and a man will come and get them.’”
Kaili was stripped of her office as European parliament vice-president after police seizures of €1.5 million in cash two weeks ago.
Her father was arrested on December 9 in the Brussels Sofitel hotel with the suitcase full of cash. An arrest warrant issued on the same day for the Greek MEP and cited in Belgian media showed Ms Kaili admitted instructing her father to hide the money.
In a statement to the press, the lawyer added Kaili “never claimed that she knew or participated in the acts of which her partner is accused, never had ownership or possession of the money found in the shared apartment. She has never in her life taken a bribe.”
Kaili’s father has been released but the Greek MEP, her partner and his former boss Panzeri remain in Belgian prison.
The case of corruption involving the recent World Cup hosts has been named “Qatargate” and centres on allegations that the Gulf state used cash and gifts to try to influence a looming visa liberalisation vote in the EU assembly.
