Inside the Qatargate police interrogations  – POLITICO

The suspects, who included the Parliament’s glamorous vice-president, Eva Kaili, were interrogated in custody in the hours and days that followed. Later, some received preliminary charges of membership of a criminal organization, corruption and money laundering. 

A cache of police documents, seen by POLITICO, includes transcripts of the initial police interviews with four of the individuals suspected of being at the center of the case known as Qatargate: Pier Antonio Panzeri, Francesco Giorgi, Eva Kaili and Andrea Cozzolino.

Here’s what they said when they were first questioned about their role (or lack thereof) in alleged attempts by foreign governments to corrupt the heart of European Union democracy. 

Pier Antonio Panzeri — Denial

Police seized Panzeri at his home at 10:02 a.m. on December 9. He would later confess to his part in the scandal, but in the two days following his arrest he stuck to a simple strategy: deny, deny, deny. 

“What I took, I admit off the books, was my payment in return for consultancy and not with an aim at corruption,” he told police, according to a transcript of his statements on December 9, 2022. 

Panzeri is a former MEP who left the Parliament in 2019 and founded an NGO. In his interview, he acknowledged he took money from Qatar but flatly denied criminality, framing his work as “classic lobbying.” He said he took €17,000 in cash per month from the Gulf state over several years, racking up more €600,000, but that his work for Qatar was not disclosed because the Gulf state wanted to keep things quiet. In failing to declare the money, Panzeri told police, he accepted he was “probably making a mistake.”

He also told police he only provided information and took “no step” in Qatar’s favor, and said he had worked on condition that the country improve its labor laws in the run-up to the football World Cup it planned to host at the end of 2022. “I give you a hand, and you make reforms,” he claimed to have told a top Qatari official. “Otherwise, your country won’t be marketable with regards to Europe.”

Recounting his career before politics as a union boss negotiating with companies on behalf of workers in Milan, Panzeri boasted of being a “talented” dealmaker, but said he was not a corruption mastermind. “I am not the one pulling the strings, if such a person exists,” he said.

Just over a month later, in January 2023, it emerged that Panzeri had admitted his guilt in a plea deal with prosecutors. 

Marc Uyttendaele, a lawyer for Panzeri, wrote to POLITICO: “We do not comment on this case.”

Francesco Giorgi — Acceptance

Giorgi was arrested 40 minutes after Panzeri on the morning of December 9. In the hours that followed, he was keen to tell investigators about the journey that had brought him there. He came to Brussels, he said, as a starry-eyed Erasmus student in 2009 and found a position as an intern in the Parliament. From there, he went to work as an assistant for Panzeri, who was then an MEP.

“For me, Panzeri is a mentor,” he said in a conversation with police on December 9, 2022. “It’s thanks to him that I met my wife,” he added, referring to Eva Kaili, the former vice president of the Parliament who was arrested the same day, and with whom he has a young daughter.

Though he was working as an assistant to another MEP — Andrea Cozzolino, also a Qatargate suspect — when he was arrested, Giorgi was still moonlighting for Panzeri, helping him with his work with Qatar because he felt “indebted to him.” He denied any knowledge of or involvement in illicit activities. “We always paid our taxes,” he said of himself and Kaili.

Police informed Giorgi in a conversation the next day that they had arrested Kaili’s father, finding him in possession of a suitcase crammed with cash, and that more money had been found at the apartment Giorgi shared with Kaili.

His reaction was to spill the beans. Kaili, he said, knew about the provenance of the cash but was not “part of the network” of influence he and Panzeri had created on Qatar’s behalf. In later declarations, Giorgi would retract his early statement that Kaili had knowledge of the origin of the cash. “I will do everything that is necessary so my daughter can stay with her mother,” he told his interviewers.

Panzeri, he said, had struck a deal with Qatar to create a lobbying operation inside the Parliament. Giorgi helped set up the project and collected bags of money from Qatari emissaries in Brussels parking lots. Almost as an afterthought, he mentioned that Panzeri also worked for Morocco and Mauritania.

He expressed regret for getting involved in Panzeri’s scheme. “It was stressing me,” Giorgi said. “I understand it’s an unhealthy system.”

“It is a real relief to be able to talk about this,” he said as the interrogation concluded. “I have never loved luxury. I don’t know why I lost my way.”

Giorgi’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. 

Eva Kaili — Bargaining 

In her first interview with investigators, on December 10, 2022, Kaili said she was dumbfounded by the accusations. “I am at a point where I don’t recognize anyone anymore, even my partner,“ she said. She thought Giorgi was “an idealist, very kind,” adding he was short of cash — that he had struggled to contribute to common expenses. 

She described the day of their arrest as one of utter panic: Her partner Giorgi has been seized, and her father too, while carrying a suitcase full of cash she had handed to him. Her baby daughter might be handed over to the social services. 

On hearing Giorgi had been arrested and her car impounded, she thought he had been “in a car accident.” Then she spotted an article in a Belgian newspaper featuring Panzeri’s name alongside mention of a large sum of money, which reminded her that the former MEP had left a suitcase and some money at her place.

She said she imagined the money’s provenance might be “not good” and asked her father to get it out of her apartment in the suitcase, along with a phone and a laptop she found in Giorgi’s study. “Before that, I had never reflected on the origin of that money,” she said.

She denied being part of any network. Any decisions she made that might be favorable to Qatar, she argued, were official business on behalf of EU institutions eager to build a rapport with a country rich in oil and gas. “Everyone asked me to continue on this path [on this issue],” Kaili said.

In a second interview, nine days later, police zeroed in on the bags and the cash; the transcript includes crude drawings of bags and suitcases. Kaili said she partially filled Panzeri’s suitcase with money from Giorgi’s safe. She knew which money was Panzeri’s because he kept it bundled, while Giorgi kept his cash loose. She described another bag in the safe — her own — containing some €30,000 to €40,000. She kept it ready as a precaution, she said, “in case of a nuclear attack.”

Sven Mary, a lawyer for Kaili, stressed the need for accurate reporting but declined to comment further. 

Kaili’s lawyers have launched a legal challenge against the case, alleging that Belgian authorities mishandled the evidence-gathering process, and prompting an internal investigation that is ongoing.

Andrea Cozzolino — Despair

Cozzolino’s conversation with Belgian police took place much later than the others, on June 21 this year, after his return to Brussels following months under house arrest in Naples.

“My life is ruined, my image is ruined,” the Italian MEP told police. “I have no desire to return to the Parliament. My political life is destroyed, destroyed, I have never had problems with the judicial system before, I was very well regarded in Italy, but my world has collapsed.”

He denied everything. He never did anything in favor of Qatar or Morocco in the Parliament. He did not receive €250,000 from Qatar to finance his 2019 EU election campaign. He did not meet the head of the Moroccan secret services. He did not hire Giorgi as part of a deal with Panzeri. He did not take instructions from the pair to defend Qatar at a Parliamentary committee meeting where the country’s Labor Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri was grilled by MEPs ahead of the World Cup.

“I have the impression of having been tricked,” Cozzolino said as he emphasized the toll his involvement in the scandal had taken on his health.

He brushed off a suggestion that he used coded language when speaking to the Moroccan ambassador to Poland, whom police suspected of spearheading Rabat’s efforts to corrupt the Parliament. The words “suits and ties” did not refer to money, the MEP said. But he did give the ambassador four Marinella ties. “He loves ties,” Cozzolino said.

Lawyers for Cozzolino did not respond to requests for comment.