Qatargate: GIP seizes 240,000 euros from Panzeri accounts

(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 23 - A preliminary investigation judge (GIP) in Bergamo on Friday seized some 240,000 euros from the bank accounts of one of the Italian protagonists of the European Parliament alleged Qatar bribery case dubbed 'Qatargate', and of his daughter.
    Some 40,000 euros was taken on a Belgian warrant from the account of former leftwing MEP Antonio Panzeri. and a further 200,000 from that of his daughter Silvia.
    The GIP froze six bank accounts in all, belonging to the Panzeris, to the former general secretary of the international trade union federation , Luca Visentini, and form a former aide to Panzeri, Francesco Giorgi.
    Also on Friday, Panzeri's wife Maria Dolores Colleoni appealed to the supreme Cassation Court against a Bergamo appeals court order to hand her over to Belgium.
    Mihalis Dimitrakopoulos, the lawyer representing the former vice-president of the European Parliament Eva Kaili, another of the key figures in the graft case which also allegedly involved Morocco, on Thursday said she was "never corrupted", expressing the hope that she will be "released soon", arriving in court in Brussels on Thursday morning.
    The former Greek MEP was scheduled to appear in court over the Qatar corruption scandal for a hearing to decide whether she will remain in custody or if she will be released until her case is taken to court.
    After the hearing upheld her detention, her lawyer said Friday she was "very sad, she's far away from her daughter, she's living a catastrophe". (ANSA).