“Mom, but how to bring back all the presents[Abderrahim] Atmoun”, a Moroccan ambassador? This is the question asked by Silvia Panzeri, the daughter of former European Parliamentarian Pier Antonio Panzeri, who was arrested in Belgium on December 9 in a corruption case involving Qatar and now Morocco. The young woman speaks to her mother, Maria Dolores Colioni. With their husband and father, they live in one of the most opulent hotels in Marrakech, Mamounia. A former elected official uncorks a bottle. The frame is set Daily Republic of La, in a December 16 article, describes the “experiences” of Banjeri, a “dear friend” of the Maghreb country. The reasons for these celebrations are not known, nor is the date of the episode.
La Mamonia would also be where the Italian politician invited his fellow parliamentarians and other aides. According to Belgian investigators, Morocco would have tried to influence particularly European institutions to minimize their support for the Polisario Front, a political and armed movement competing in Western Sahara in Rabat. The kingdom will rely on the man at the center of the Qatar scandal, Pierre Antonio Panzeri, a member of the European Parliament’s committee for relations with the Maghreb countries in his second and last term between 2014 and 2019. Qatar Gate, now a commercial misnomer, was therefore born in Morocco.
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Western Sahara in stocks
The newspaper said the former, elected from the European Socialists and Democrats group, would be a “puppet in the hands of Rabat’s secret services” for more than a decade. In sol 24 ore. The 2012 letter, which a few years later the Transalpine magazine today calls the “Moroccan-leaks”, indicates that a Moroccan diplomat on a mission to Brussels may have informed his foreign minister about the meetings. Pancheri MEP. The same reserved documents will demonstrate how the Italian language will be used to help Morocco in its trade files with the EU on fisheries and agriculture. “The contracts are based on the exploitation of Western Sahara, even though it is an autonomous territory from Morocco,” writes the business daily.
“If Morocco is right, it doesn’t need to corrupt anyone,” Fatima Mahfud, Polisario’s leading representative in Italy, said in an interview with the Adnkronos news agency. Last year, the European Court of Justice annulled these agreements between the Union and the monarchy. “It is established that if someone wants to do business with Western Sahara, especially in fishing, he should not go to Morocco, the representative continues. So avoiding this punishment using political pressure is not good news, if the charges are confirmed,” concludes Fatima Mahfoud, referring to the corruption scandal that broke out a week ago.
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“Dear Friend of Morocco”
These political pressures span more than ten years Republic of La, European elected representative Pier Antonio Panzeri will have organized a trip to the Algerian city of Tindouf near Western Sahara and the seat of the Polisario Front. Such a visit by a member of parliament from Brussels must have worried Rabat. On the contrary, this trip into “enemy territory” would have confirmed the impartiality of the one who coordinated with the Moroccan authorities and was in fact their “trustee”. So the daily maintains that the two parties are already in contact “to promote Morocco’s image”. Two years later, a diplomatic cable defined Italian as a “dear friend of Morocco”.
The Belgian investigation has yet to define the extent of the former elected official’s Moroccan corruption. After the end of the last mandate of Pier Antonio Panzeri in 2019, he has already revealed that the financial movements created by the NGO Fight Impunity, especially from Qatar. In addition, 600,000 euros were seized in his Brussels. residence on December 9 by investigators. The confessions of his former assistant Francesco Giorgi, arrested on the same day, made it possible to rebuild a “criminal organization” aimed at influencing the European Parliament: following his Moroccan connections at the beginning of the last decade, Pier Antonio Panzeri would have passed. 2019 “A secret agreement with Morocco’s secret services” thanks to the intermediary of the Moroccan ambassador in Poland, Abdelrahim Atmoun.
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