Three Italians charged in EU corruption probe
Three Italian nationals have been charged and are being held in custody in Brussels as part of a corruption probe into tenders awarded by the European Commission, Belgian prosecutors said Wednesday. The three include a civil servant working for the European Commission, an assistant to a member of the European Parliament and a businessman, prosecutors said.
The three men, who live in Belgium and whose names were not given, were charged with forgery and using forged documents, corruption, fraud and forming a criminal organisation, said spokesman Jos Colpin. “There were bribes of millions of euros for more than 10 years,” said Colpin. The bribes were paid in relation to public tenders for buildings housing “European Commission delegations outside of EU territory”, he said.
More than 150 police took part on Tuesday in more than 30 dawn raids in Belgium, France, Italy and Luxembourg as part of the corruption investigation, which is trying to establish the conditions under which some European public tenders were awarded. Corruption cases at EU institutions are a sensitive issue after a scandal in the late 1990s brought the entire European Commission down.
Source: AFP via EU Business, 28 March 2007
