“After having made a formal request to the proceeding judicial authorities, the honorable Andrea Cozzolino will also ask the parliamentary assembly to which he belongs to be heard in order to answer all questions and offer all the information and clarifications useful for ascertaining the facts. Mr Cozzolino does not intend to invoke parliamentary immunity for the political activity he carried out in a free and transparent manner, being completely unrelated to the crimes for which he is proceeding”. The lawyers of the MEP Federico Conte, Dezio Ferraro and Dimitri De Beco declare it in a note.
Cozzolino, MEP since 2009, is being investigated by the Belgian police (who have asked for the waiver of parliamentary immunity against him and his Belgian colleague Marc Tarabella) in the investigation into Qatargate. In particular, the investigators believe that he was the trusted man of the Moroccan secret services. The latter would have used him to protect their interests in Europe, above all as regards the controversy over Western Sahara (occupied by Morocco) and the Pegasus software, which Morocco allegedly used to spy on political opponents and on which the ‘Europe has opened an investigation.
Before Christmas Cozzolino was suspended as a precaution by the Democratic Party.