Huawei case, revocation of immunity requested for the 3 FI MEPs Martusciello, De Meo and Princi

The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola , reported that the Belgian prosecutor's office has requested the lifting of immunity for five MEPs, as part of the investigation into the so-called Huaweigate .

These are the three exponents of Forza Italia, Fulvio Martusciello , Salvatore De Meo and Giusi Princi , as well as the Bulgarian of Renew Europe, Nikola Minchev , and the Maltese socialist Daniel Attard .

The requests for waiver of immunity, Metsola said during the plenary session of the European Parliament, will now be forwarded to the Committee on Legal Affairs, which is responsible for examining them.

The Huawei case exploded on March 13, with the arrest of four lobbyists linked to the Chinese telecommunications giant, suspected of having tried to corrupt about fifteen former and current MEPs to influence European policies in favor of the Chinese giant.

The raid also touched the heart of the European Parliament: during a series of searches in the premises of the EU institution's headquarters in Brussels, Belgian investigators had temporarily seized the offices of two parliamentary assistants linked to Forza Italia, seals that were later removed after the investigations. However, up to now no MEP had been formally implicated.

The central figure in the investigation is the Italian-Belgian Valerio Ottati , head of Huawei's European affairs, believed to be the director of the alleged system of bribes, gifts and illicit reimbursements.

Martusciello's collaborator, Lucia Simeone , also ended up in the investigators' net. She was arrested on March 20 in the Caserta area in execution of a European arrest warrant for criminal association, money laundering and corruption.

Mandate revoked four weeks later: Simeone agreed to collaborate with the Belgian judiciary, providing elements deemed useful for the development of the investigation.