People want to know the latest Andrea Cozzolino news. Andrea Cozzolino, an Italian MEP, was arrested for corruption. Let’s take a closer look at Andrea Cozzolino News and other facts. Andrea Cozzolino, an Italian politician, has been a member of the European Parliament since 2009. He was first elected as an MEP in 2009, and he was re-elected in 2014 and 2019.
Cozzolino has been a member of the House of Representatives Regional Development Committee since 2014. In 2019, he also joined the Subcommittee on Human Rights. Cozzolino has previously served on the Budgetary Control Committee (2009-2012), the Budgets Committee (2009-2013), and the Petitions Committee (2014-2019).
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Andrea Cozzolino Arrested for Corruption in Italy
According to his counsel, Italian MEP Andrea Cozzolino was arrested on Friday night as part of an investigation into suspected corruption in the European Parliament. He has returned home. Cozzolino has returned home, although he is still under house arrest, according to ANSA. He has opposed his extradition to Belgium because of the “method of proceeding” in Belgian court, according to the statement.
Cozzolino’s legal team said that they had written to the court multiple times since December 21 seeking to be heard but had never gotten a response. According to ANSA, Cozzolino’s extradition hearing will take place on Tuesday morning. Belgian officials issued the arrest warrant, and the operation began early Friday morning with the arrest of Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella. Cozzolino and Tarabella’s immunity was waived in a plenary vote on Thursday, enabling Belgian investigators to hold them.
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Belgian authorities also conducted further searches on Tarabella and Cozzolino on Friday. Earlier on Friday, Belgian police searched Cozzolino’s residence in Brussels and sealed, but did not examine, his office in the European Parliament, according to a representative for the Belgian prosecutor. The prosecutor noted in a news release that various offices in the Walloon town of Anthisnes, where Tarabella is still mayor, as well as Tarabella’s safe deposit box at a bank in Liège, were searched. Tarabella and Cozzolino may have violated Belgian law by participating in corruption, belonging to a criminal gang, or money laundering, according to legislative conclusions.
However, the prosecutor’s office merely mentioned corruption and money laundering in their Friday statement. Niccol Figà-Talamanca, the secretary-general of No Peace Without Justice, one of the nongovernmental organizations linked to the Qatargate corruption scandal, was released from prison late last week by the Belgian investigative judge overseeing the case. The other three suspects are the former vice president of the European Parliament Eva Kaili, her boyfriend Francesco Giorgi, and former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri. In January, Panzeri agreed to collaborate with the investigators. Both Cozzolino and Tarabella deny any misconduct.
Andrea Cozzolino Career
Cozzolino voted against the European Parliament’s resolution on November 23, 2022, naming the Russian Federation a state sponsor of terrorism. The PD’s National Commission of Guarantee decided to suspend Cozzolino from the party on December 16th, 2022, “until the conclusion of the ongoing judicial investigations relating to the ‘Qatargate’ incident.”
Following the announcement by Brando Benifei, Leader of the PD Party in the European Parliament, of the Party’s vote in favor of the request for waiver of immunity for MEPs Cozzolino and Marc Tarabella, requested by the Belgian Prosecutor and supported by President Roberta Metsola, Cozzolino announces his intention to renounce it.
