The papers of the investigation and the social account of the former MEP’s holidays with his family. The estimate for Christmas: 9,000 euros each for accommodation only
• Former MEP Antonio Panzeri, 67, and the vice president of the EU Parliament Eva Kaili, 44, are among those accused of conspiracy to commit corruption and money laundering in the investigation that rocked Brussels.
• Hundreds of thousands of euros in cash were found in the Belgian residences of both.
• Panzeri’s wife and daughter are also under house arrest on charges of aiding and abetting: the investigators claim that they were aware of the favors that the former Democratic Party MEP and trade unionist allegedly received from Qatar and Morocco in exchange for political pressure.
The doubt had also come to his wife: “We cannot afford to spend 100 thousand euros on holidays like last year”, he said Maria Dolores Colleoni
to Antonio Panzeri. And even when she saw her husband’s plans for the Christmas holidays, she objected that the estimate of 9,000 euros per person just for accommodation “was too expensive”.
THE travel and holidays seem to be a passion of the Panzeri family:
they leave, spend, take pictures and post everything on social media, regardless of the fact that someone could arouse suspicions. Just look at the profiles of the former MEP’s daughter. Silvia Panzeri, 38 years old, a lawyer for eleven years, home and office in the Milanese area, on the one hand he boasts activities related to gender-based violence, the protection of women victims of violence and cyberbullying (as well as a recent specialization in European Union law). But, together, he shows up with friends on the edge of a Miami Beach pool complaining that the vacation was over, only to go for a walk around Montreal two weeks later. And last November 27, speaking of women’s rights, he posted images of Souq Waqif in Doha. That is the capital of Qatar, the country that is hosting the World Cup, involved in allegations of corruption with money paid to his father. With what the mother defines on the phone «combines». And to call her husband’s travels and business affairs “trallazzi”, according to the investigators, means that the woman was aware of “ingenious and often incorrect means”.
Means of which the two women, according to the Belgian authorities, “seem to be fully aware”, so much so that they “even participated in the transport of the “gifts” of the Moroccan ambassador in Poland”. Despite her husband’s resume, it seems that Maria Colleoni was not very convinced of her financial skills, so much so that she would have repeatedly stressed that she did not want him to carry out “transactions without her being able to control him”. Indeed, sometimes it was she who suggested how to use the money, for example by explaining that an unclear “other solution” could be used to pay for the New Year’s holiday, then debiting the expenses from a Belgian account. Or using the credit card, together with her husband, of a third person, nicknamed “The Giant”, not identified in the documents.
“We read these things and we are shocked,” said the couple’s neighbors in Calusco d’Adda (Bergamo) yesterday. Where there are few who have close relationships with Antonio Panzeri. Those who know him well, such as the former mayor Alfredino Cattaneo, who had Panzeri’s brother as deputy, say they are “incredulous: he does not correspond to the man I know”. And the historical exponents of the left and of the union even more: «For us Antonio was a good trade unionist and a reference in Europe – says the former provincial secretary of the CGIL Luigi Bresciani -. These things are a bolt from the blue, they make me feel betrayed and disappointed, and they make me feel very angry».
December 10, 2022 (change December 11, 2022 | 1:30 pm)
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