Corruption is Everywhere > Allegedly Crooked MEPs all released to house-arrest in Brussels

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EU Parliament VP Eva Kaili leaves prison for house arrest in Belgium

By Clyde Hughes

Former Vice President of the European Parliament, Eva Kaili was moved to house arrest from prison Thursday.

File Photo by Jalal Morchidi/EPA-EFE

April 13 (UPI) -- Eva Kaili, the former high-ranking European Parliament officer who was arrested in connection with a political bribery scheme in December was moved from prison to house arrest by Belgium authorities as her case makes it through the courts.

Kaili's lawyer, Sven Mary, said that she was placed under electronic monitoring and would return home.

"I will not give more commentary, besides the fact that this is a logical decision that took too long to be taken," said Mary.

Kaili, 44, was the last of the individuals arrested to be moved to electronic surveillance house arrest.

In December, a court denied her lawyer's requests to release her from jail before Christmas.

Mary told Euronews in an interview that investigators failed to find new evidence in the case against Kaili and accused the prosecutor's office of holding her as a "trophy."

"Ms. Kaili is lifted as a symbol to say: 'Even if you hold high office, you will remain in prison.' And this is made especially to say to the other lawmakers: 'Do not commit corruption because you will go to prison for a long time," Mary said.

Francesco Giorgi, Kaili's husband who was also arrested as part of the allegations, was among those released earlier and placed under house arrest.

The alleged ringleader of the scheme, former Italian Parliament member Pier Panzeri, Panzeri reportedly reached a plea deal in January.

Kaili was representing Greece and serving as vice president of the European Parliament, was caught up in an alleged cash-for-influence scheme to win favors for Qatar and Morocco in the body. Kaili, the countries and others arrested as part of the investigation have denied all of the charges.

At the time of Kaili's arrest, the so-called Qatar-gate scandal was considered one of the largest corruption investigations in the history of the European Parliament. She was charged in connection with illegal lobbying, and exposed in an organized sting by Belgian authorities investigating corruption, money laundering, and foreign influence peddling.

Kaili was swiftly booted out of her vice president's position and the European Parliament in a rare expulsion vote but remains a non-attached MEP.

European Politicians Desperately Grasping at Straws to Stop Le Pen

EU lawmakers vote to strip Le Pen of immunity

for tweeting pictures of ISIS violence

Marine Le Pen © Global Look Press via ZUMA Press

An EU parliamentary committee has voted to lift the immunity (from prosecution) of French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, officials have said. The decision is over the graphic photos of Islamic State victims posted by the politician on Twitter.

Le Pen, the leader of the Eurosceptic and anti-immigration National Front and contender for the French presidency in the upcoming elections, is under investigation in France for posting images of Islamic State atrocities, including the beheading of American journalist James Foley, back in 2015.

The MEPs in the legal affairs committee, after deliberating whether Le Pen’s posts were becoming of a European deputy, "overwhelmingly voted to lift Le Pen's immunity," Italian lawmaker Laura Ferrara told Reuters.

The European Parliament as a whole is to vote on the issue on Thursday, AFP reported.

RT sought comment from Ludovic de Danne, the Secretary General of the ENF (Europe of Nations and Freedom), the political bloc in the European parliament led by Le Pen.

“It's a poor way of the EU globalists and an easy hypocritical excuse to target Marine Le Pen,” de Danne responded in an email. “Like for the other attacks it’s the same maneuvers like against Brexit and Trump. The people are not blind anymore.”

“We are confident she would win any potential trial in this case if it ever happens.”

In December 2015, Le Pen tweeted three graphic photographs of IS killings accompanied by the text “Daesh [Arabic term for IS] is THIS!” in response to journalist Jean-Jacques Bourdin who compared her nationalist rhetoric to that of the Islamic terrorist group.

The family of James Foley, whose lifeless body featured in one of the photographs, said they were “deeply disturbed by the unsolicited use of Jim for Le Pen’s political gain.”

Le Pen had her parliamentary immunity taken away in 2013, when she was charged with inciting racial hatred for remarks she made in 2010 in the city of Lyon, when she compared Muslims praying outside to an “occupation.”

But in December 2015, Le Pen was acquitted after a judge decided that while her remarks were “shocking”, they were protected “as a part of freedom of expression.”

Her father and former National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, has been stripped of his parliamentary immunity four times for making inflammatory remarks, including calling the Holocaust a mere “detail of history.”

‘Game-changer’: European Parliament Votes in Favor of ‘Dropping Charges’ Against Snowden

Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
© Vincent Kessler / Reuters

The majority of European Parliament members have voted in favor of asking constituent states to grant protection to whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has described the move as a ‘game-changer’ and a ‘chance to move forward’.

MEPs have urged EU member states to “drop any criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and international human rights defender,” a European Parliament press release stated.

The call was not unequivocal, however, with 285 MEPs voting for the motion and 281 against, showing just how divided the European political elite remains on the issue.

Still, it’s a victory for Snowden, who sees the result of the voting as a “game-changer.”

“This is not a blow against the US Government, but an open hand extended by friends. It is a chance to move forward,” he wrote on Twitter.

Even a slim majority voting in favor of Snowden means a lot, according to Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden’s lawyer in Russia.

“The resolution of the EU parliament is recognition of Edward’s [Snowden] merits to the mankind, his courage and honesty of his position,” he said as cited by the Interfax news agency.

The European Parliament thoroughly studied Snowden’s leaks and in March 2014 adopted a resolution to protect the personal data of EU citizens.

“The European Parliament's inquiry into Edward Snowden’s revelations of electronic mass surveillance was the most comprehensive investigation completed to date. This work needs to continue to ensure that civil liberties are defended on the internet too,” Claude Moraes of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), Chair of the Civil Liberties Committee and rapporteur on mass surveillance said.

The MEPs now say they are dissatisfied with the lack of action taken following their inquiry. The Thursday resolution, which said that not enough had been done to tackle mass surveillance, received a wider backing with 342 voices for it, 274 against and 29 abstentions.

“EU citizens' fundamental rights remain in danger” and “too little has been done to ensure their full protection,” the MEPs said.

The Parliament has also called on the European Commission to “immediately take the necessary measures to ensure that all personal data transferred to the US are subject to an effective level of protection that is essentially equivalent to that guaranteed in the EU”.

The EU’s parliament is worried about “recent laws in some member states that extend surveillance capabilities of intelligence bodies” – including in France, the UK and the Netherlands.

It is also concerned about “revelations of mass surveillance of telecommunications and internet traffic inside the EU by the German foreign intelligence agency (BND) in cooperation with the US National Security Agency (NSA)”.

The MPs also called on EU bodies to elaborate a strategy aimed at increasing levels of technological independence, improving online privacy, democratizing control over intelligence activities and rebuilding trust with the EU.

The problem of personal data protection has been in the spotlight since 2013, when former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, disclosed mass surveillance programs used by the US intelligence services. Snowden was granted asylum in Russia. He is facing a number of charges in the US, including theft of government property and violating the Espionage Act.

So, how can the US charge Snowden with theft of government property, when that property was obtained illegally. Does a thieve's booty become his property? 

What Happened When an Anti-Semite Found He was Jewish?

'We're not willing to look at the achievements of other peoples. We're afraid their cultures might be as valuable as ours'.

By Nick Thorpe
BBC News, Hungary

Csanad Szegedi speaking as a member of Jobbik in 2012

Three years ago, a Hungarian far-right politician with a strong line in anti-Semitism discovered that he was Jewish. He left his party, and set out on a remarkable personal journey to learn and practise his Jewish faith.

Only seconds before he goes on stage, Csanad Szegedi paces the school corridor like a bear in an unfamiliar forest. Then the headmaster's introduction is over, the pupils who pack the hall are clapping enthusiastically, and the big man is going up the steps, the blood roaring in his ears.

The confidence returns and he plays to the crowd, just as he once did at party rallies, or as a member of the European Parliament.

He comes across a bit like the American singer Johnny Cash. "Hello, I'm Csanad Szegedi." And the schoolchildren of the Piarist Secondary School in Szeged hang on every word.

"I'm speaking to you here today," says the tall chubby faced man, with small, intelligent eyes, "because if someone had told me when I was 16 or 17 what I'm going to go tell you now, I might not have gone so far astray."

As deputy leader of the radical nationalist Jobbik party in Hungary, Szegedi co-founded the Hungarian Guard - a paramilitary formation which marched in uniform through Roma neighbourhoods.

And he blamed the Jews, as well as the Roma, for the ills of Hungarian society - until he found out that he himself was one. After several months of hesitation, during which the party leader even considered keeping him as the party's "tame Jew" as a riposte to accusations of anti-Semitism, he walked out.

Hungarian national guard

Members of the Magyar Garda, or Hungarian Guard
Complete with attitude. Notice the sign.

Not a man to do things in half-measures, he has now become an Orthodox Jew, has visited Israel, and the concentration camp at Auschwitz which his own grandmother survived.

He discovered that his grandmother wore long-sleeved shirts, or a plaster in summer, to cover the tell-tale concentration camp number tattooed on her arm. As his old personality collapsed, Szegedi performed radical surgery on himself. He even set fire to copies of his own biography, I Believe in the Resurrection of the Hungarian Nation.

Today he speaks to the students without notes, sometimes striding along the stage, sometimes sitting back in a chair, but keeping their attention with a mixture of confessions, family histories, and jokes.

His volte-face seems complete - there are giggles from the girls, awkward squirming from the boys in the audience as he describes his circumcision. Then come the questions.

"Did you know any Jews before you discovered your own Jewish roots? How do you react when you hear anti-Semitism expressed today? Were you a practising Christian before you practised Judaism? Was it hard to break with your party?"

The answers are straightforward.

"Anti-Semitism doesn't need Jews, because its based on false premises. It is the projection of one's own fears, and lack of self esteem." He had a Protestant wedding, but was never christened. Every rupture was hard, but he tried to do it peacefully, and state firmly his own mistakes. And also did his duty to point to the extremism in his old party.

Csanad Szegedi talking to pupils

Later, we meet in a Budapest flat in a popular pedestrian street - one of several he rents out. While once he sold far-right paraphernalia, like T-shirts and flags, he's now moved into real estate, with equal success.

It's as though everything he touches turns to gold.

What does he think of the new, more moderate direction, imposed on his former party by leader Gabor Vona? I ask. If Vona succeeds, might he even consider rejoining it, this time as a practising Jew, rather than an anti-Semite?

Szegedi laughs. "Only the BBC would ask me that question!"

"Vona had to turn to the centre. But the party is still full of people who joined it for its radicalism, its nationalism, its extremism. And they don't want anything less now. So there is a limit to how moderate it can become." There is no way back into politics for him, he insists.

Still a patriot, he defends his people from the slur of racism. Hungarian people are not anti-Semitic, although there is an anti-Semitic discourse in society, he says.

In fact, Budapest is a great place to be a Jew in, he beams - with its kosher restaurants, synagogues, and Jewish shops. You can practise your culture, and practise your faith here. You might get funny looks if you wear a kippah - a traditional Jewish skullcap - but you won't be spat on, or physically threatened as you might be in France or Belgium.

"The paradox of Hungarian nationalism," says the man who used to fly its banner, "is that we are proud of our own achievements, but we're not willing to look at those of other peoples. We're afraid their cultures might be as valuable as ours."