QATARGATE: A HEIST AT THE VERY HEART OF EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY OPERATION MEZZO RE-ENACTED
One month after the breaking news of the scandal over corruption and interference in the European Parliament by Morocco and Qatar, Le Soir’ and Knack are piecing together an investigation that includes espionage, suitcases full of money and secret meetings in Brussels
It’s been a month since the corruption and interference affair in the European Parliament by foreign states burst onto the world scene, leaving the EU stunned. Spectacular police raids, suitcases full of money and revelations over the alleged roles of Morocco and Qatar.
While the judicial enquiry has only just begun, two Members of the European Parliament, including the Belgian Marc Tarabella, are facing a request to waive their immunity, and Le Soir and Knack are determined to piece together the history of a request for information that turned into a legal investigation that echoed throughout the world. This detailed story is the fruit of an investigation started in September 2022 and is based on a series of insider witness statements and documents.
Code Name “Mezzo”
Spring 2022. A team of agents from La Sûreté de l'État (Belgian State Security and Intelligence Service) discreetly enter a sandstone-coloured, seven-story building in Schaerbeek, half a kilometre from the RTBF (Belgian public broadcasting organisation) tower. The Italian ex-politician Pier Antonio Panzeri (aged 67) lives there. The agents have been assured that he wasn’t home at the time.
Under the bed in his room, a black suitcase on wheels. When the agents open the zipper, they find four packages, wrapped in a C&A red plastic bag, and a plastic shopping bag from the Carrefour grocery store. The packages contain some 7,601 bills of 50 euros, totalling 380,050 euros. Bingo.
And that isn’t all: in one of Panzeri’s closets is a safe with a digital lock. The agents first identify a book, a DVD, and a cardboard box. But behind them, a stack of 50-, 100-, and 200-euro notes. An additional 320,000 euros. The agents photograph the booty and go, leaving no evidence of their surreptitious visit. Every trace has been erased.
Interference
The spies received authorisation for this secret raid from the three Magistrates of the BIM (Building Information Modelling Commission) who control the use of “special methods of information gathering.” This incursion is part of an enquiry initiated in 2021 by La Sûreté regarding interference by a foreign power: a cooperating European intelligence organisation transmitted “very reliable” information to the Belgians about people close to members of the European Parliament who were supposedly taking bribes from the DGED, the Moroccan Secret Service. In return, these suspects secretly influenced the declarations and resolutions of the European Parliament. They might even have managed to get deputies appointed to certain commissions.
During this enquiry, La Sûreté cooperated not just with their ally in the European intelligence organisation, but also with four other similar groups.
After the raid on Panzieri’s home, La Sûreté sent its results to the BIM Commission. On Tuesday, April 26th, they in turn passed on their findings to the Federal Prosecutor’s office in a seven-page declassified report. “During their information gathering exercise, La Sûreté proceeded with searches of the residence of the Italian Pier-Antonio Panzieri,” Jean-Claude Claeys then wrote to the Federal Prosecutor. “This person is a former Member of the European Parliament who is now said to be involved in lobbying activities at the heart of European institutions.” Claeys detailed the results of the operation led by La Sûreté. He concluded that there existed “serious evidence, or at least reasonable suspicion” that Panzieri was involved in money laundering.
Money laundering
“I can’t comment on the investigation itself,” Claeys replied in response to Le Soir and Knack. “I’m also leaving open the question of whether La Sûreté itself had already submitted notes on this matter to the judicial authorities. But I can confirm that the BIM Commission can produce a declassified report when a special method of information gathering reveals suspicious activity or indications of criminal offenses. In that case, we can declassify certain information from the intelligence agencies and send them over to the Public Prosecutor’s department. Since I became President of the Committee in 2016, this has already been done dozens of times. So it isn’t that unusual. And to be clear: such an official report is only one element of proof; it isn’t enough to convict someone in court. It is up to the judicial authorities to gather all the necessary evidence.”
Based on the report from the BIM Commission, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s office opens an investigation on “organized crime” on July 12, 2022. That same day, Frédéric Van Leeuw, the Federal Public Prosecutor, asks La Sûreté to send him all the relevant information and immediately receives a 15-page document. “Urgent” is written on the first page. Subject: “Interference at the heart of the European Parliament”.
La Sûreté described a “network that carries out activities to interfere in European institutions on behalf of Morocco, but also on behalf of Qatar, using as intermediaries people occupying key positions in the European institutional world, principally in the European Parliament.” The functioning and composition of the network were also analysed, “as well as indications of activities considered to be linked to corruption, money laundering and interference.”
Embargo
The Federal Public Prosecutor’s office entrusts the investigation to Michel Claise, the examining Magistrate from Brussels, and to the OCRC (the Central Office for the Repression of Corruption) – a specialist department within the Federal Police force. On July 15, 2022, the OCRC draws up a report with additional information about Panzieri and ten other individuals who they suggest should have their phones tapped.
The case file is given the code name “Mezzo”; it is so sensitive that, in the beginning, only a handful of magistrates and investigators have knowledge of it. In the jargon, the case file is discussed as “under embargo”: the initial official reports of the investigation are not added to the police database, in order to avoid leaks. Out of precaution, and to protect recordings being heard by any hostile parties in future, the investigators use colours as code names to identify each suspect. They need to proceed with caution: due to the immunity of the MEPs potentially involved, the investigators must proceed very carefully.
Spies and Gifts: Morocco at the Heart of European Democracy
June 2022. Maria Colleoni (aged 67), Panzeri’s wife, is visiting Morocco. She is received by Abderrahim Atmoun, Morocco’s Ambassador to Poland and financer of the money assumed being used in these acts of interference. Maria Colleoni calls her husband; the conversation is recorded in a report by La Sûreté.
“Everything went well; we were treated like VIPs,” his wife says happily. “We went to have a coffee at Atmoun’s house.”
Antonio is worried: did she “see the boxes?” She immediately reassures him: their friend the Ambassador,” she assures him, “took two of the boxes, opened them and quickly showed what they contained. Then “he took a few items, threw them in a bag, and said: ‘Say they’re a gift from Atmoun’.”
A brief conversation that increases the fears of the Intelligence Services: Antonio Panzeri is believed to have used his people skills in a corrupt manner – skills that his friends in the European Parliament recently praised him for – to massively increase his own wealth and allow foreign interests to infiltrate the very heart of European democracy.
A valuable go-between
The friendship between the Moroccan diplomat and the Antonio Panzeri family seems to have its roots shortly after 2009, when the Italian Socialist had just been re-elected to the European Parliament, winning, in the process, the presidency of the delegation for relations with the countries of the Maghreb, as well as the co-presidency, in tandem with Abderrahim Atmoun of the EU-Moroccan Joint Parliamentary Committee. In other words, at this time, Panzeri was the face of European diplomacy in Rabat more than anyone else, a man it was better to have as a friend than an enemy. Or, in more diplomatic terms, and as noted in the summary “leaked” in October 2011 and sent to the European Union in Rabat by the Moroccan Mission, Panzeri “could be an influential ally or a formidable adversary”.
The object of that message was to prepare the visit that an S&D MEP had to carry out across the Mediterranean two weeks later. A sensitive stop was scheduled in Tindouf (Algeria), where several Sahrawi refugee camps were located. A necessary step to preserve the MEP’s image of neutrality: “The visit to Tindouf is indispensable to reassure Algeria and Polisario of Panzeri’s credibility after he was accused [by Polisario] of being pro-Moroccan,” the Moroccan representative warned the EU. The Palisario Front is fighting for independence from Western Sahara.
The Order of Ouissam Alaouite
In another cable, dated 2013, the Moroccan Mission in Brussels suggests a series of measures to its government to thwart “the growing activism of our adversaries at the heart of the EP,” and, in particular, the report that the British MEP Charles Tannock is tasked with writing about human rights in Western Sahara. Several lobbying strategies are envisioned, and to attain its goals, the Mission well understands it must “coordinate its actions with the President of the Maghreb delegation to the Parliament, Antonio Panzeri, a close friend of Morroco’s, to reduce the damage that the Tannock plan might create.” In July 2014, Antonio Panzeri would even be decorated with the Order of Ouissam Alaouite, third class, by King Mohammed VI. The same day, his friend Abderrahim Atmoun was also decorated.
When interrogated by the examining Magistrate Michel Claise shortly after his arraignment, on December 10th, Panzeri nevertheless refutes having been a double agent or ever betraying his position to benefit the interests of foreign countries. He affirmed that he had never accepted the lucrative missions of the Moroccans until after his third term in office had expired in 2019: “The agreement stated that work would have been done to avoid resolutions against the country and that in exchange, 50,000 euros would be paid. That agreement was sent to Morocco, and in a certain way, continued and was continued through the current Ambassador, who is in Warsaw (…)”
“I feel indebted”
His conspiratorial friendship with Franceso Giorgi, who was also suspected of getting windfalls from Morocco, Qatar and then Mauritania, dates from the same time period: a graduate in Political Science from the University of Milan, Giorgi was not even 23 years old when he joined the ULB (Ecole Polytechnique Université Libre de Bruxelles) as an Erasmus exchange student, to begin his internship at the European Parliament. That is where he would meet Eva Kaili, the Greek woman who would become his partner, but also Antonio Panzeri: at the start of his second European term, the man in his fifties was seduced by this young tri-lingual compatriot – Panzieri only speaks Italian – as well as Giorgi’s expertise in international relations. From the stalls of the Caprice des Dieux (newly designed Paul-Henri Spaak building in the European Parliament complex) to the Brussels jails, the two men are still friends. When Panzieri left Europe in 2019, Giorgi became the assistant of another MEP, Andrea Cozzolino, while supporting his former boss in the launch and management of Fight Impunity, the Brussels non-profit organization set up to collect …Qatari money: “Mr. Panzeri offered me my first job, I feel indebted to him,” Francesco Giorgi explains to the police. “He had a lot of difficulty accepting not being re-elected; he gave me the benefit of his contacts, which were useful in the context of my work.”
His work was to advise Andrea Cozzolino, S&D MEP since 2009, Panzeri’s successor at the head of the Maghreb delegation and the Joint Parliamentary Commission. Targeted by the request to waive his immunity sent a few days before by the Belgian justice system to the Presidency of the Parliament, cited several times in the report that La Sûreté de l’Etat sent to the judicial authorities the summer before, Cozzolino is believed to have met the head of the Moroccan intelligence services at least once, according to Belgian agents. In 2019, “probably in October, early November.” Another meeting, this time in the company of Antonio Panzeri and the Moroccan Ambassador to Poland, is said to have taken place later in Warsaw. Enough to send the former Italian Communist over to the dark side? The main person concerned has vigorously denied having done anything illegal since December and says he is ready to be heard in court. Belgian intelligence nevertheless suspects him of having managed to infiltrate the Pegasus Commission established at the European Parliament in March 2022 to investigate the use of spyware in Europe, on the orders of the Moroccans in charge.
The Moroccan secret service
Speaking only Italian, it was natural that Panzeri would first turn towards his compatriots when he needed to increase his influence over the European Parliament; the Ministry of Justice feared he had sought to appeal to the good graces of aides, civil servants perhaps, and even parliamentarians. Through payments and services rendered. From the legal file, it today appears that he obviously consulted his friend, the diplomat Abderrahim Atmoun, who was suspected of being the carrier of the suitcases, as well as the Moroccan intelligence services, suspected of giving the orders: Yassine Mansouri, who has been its director since 2005, and Mohamed Belharache, a spy wanted by the French authorities since 2016 because he managed to recruit an agent assigned to the border police of Orly Airport in order to get his hands on nearly 200 “S files” of people suspected of radicalization.
“It feels like we’re in Ocean’s Eleven”
The scene takes place in Antonio Panzeri’s Brussels apartment. We hear two men laughing uncontrollably. We are, presumably, a few weeks away from the election of his guest to the post of General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation. The career of Luca Visentini, who was then head of the European Trade Union Confederation, is therefore at a turning point.
What the two men do not know is that the microphones placed by La Sûreté a few months earlier are still working. “It feels like we’re in Ocean’s Eleven,” Visentini says, smiling, as Antonio Panzeri hands him envelopes stuffed with bank notes. “It’s Santa Claus,” the recipient sniggers. Confronted with these statements several weeks later by Judge Claise, who one imagines was less jolly, Luca Visentini explains: “The reason I said that is because the money was put in envelopes that had a Santa Claus on them. It was a joke.” The person who would be elected head of the ITUC on November 20 concedes: “Actually,” receiving cash “is not entirely normal.” “But it is true that within the international union it often happens that certain payments are made in cash, because non-union NGOs collect this money,” Luca Visentini explains to the judge. In short, he thought he would receive a donation from Fight Impunity, the non-profit human rights organization with which he had already recently collaborated.
A Union fund
“We’re talking about a little less than 50,000 euros in cash,” according to the confessions of the Italian trade unionist Visentini, who had just turned 59. In his defence, he says that this money was paid to the ITUC and its small European subsidiary – 23,000 for one, 13,000 for the other – after passing through his personal accounts. This money would have mainly been used to finance his electoral campaign and the “solidarity fund that exists within the International Confederation and which is used to cover the costs of the poorest unions in the world.” The discrepancy between these 36,000 euros and the almost 50,000 received from the overgenerous hand of Panzeri? They would have been spent on campaign expenses for the Australian Congress where he was aiming for the position of union “boss”: “I used the remaining amount to pay for a series of trips and activities related to my campaign.” The police would verify his statements. In the meantime, at the end of his hearing, the investigating Magistrate partially accepted his justifications, not charging him with being part of a “criminal organisation” and releasing him under certain conditions. Luca Visentini, however, does not escape charges for “corruption” and “money laundering.”
Campaign backing
Had Qatar, through Panzeri, chosen its protégé as the head of the union? Social rights are a major reputation issue for the gas emirate. What could be better than paying for the complacency of the ITUC? The first declassified document from the Belgian Intelligence Service is informative: “While the original investigation was focused solely on Morocco, one section revealed interference activity carried out by the same group (...) on behalf of Qatar, and now constitutes a substantial part of the information found by La Sûreté,” the confidential report explains. “Qatar’s objectives are different from those of Morocco. While Morocco tries to obtain influence within the European apparatus to sway decisions in its favour, the Qatari in charge seeks to improve Qatar’s image in terms of workers’ rights, and nothing more.”
“Qatar heard about Visentini's candidacy for General Secretary of the ITUC, and given that Panzeri knew Visentini, he supported his candidacy for the position,” Francesco Giorgi claimed in the hearing.
“Corruption is unacceptable”
Luca Visentini denies any manipulation by Qatar. To prove it, he stresses to investigators that his recent trip to Qatar – at the end of October 2022 with plane tickets paid for by Fight Impunity... – had the main objective of meeting the International Labour Organization, an agency within the United Nations with an office in Doha. Supported by press cuttings, Visentini denies any flattering speech about Qatar. A few weeks after his visit there, the Italian spoke to AFP noting “huge problems” in putting labour reforms into practice. Since his indictment, he has defended himself: “Corruption, in all its forms, is totally unacceptable and I am fully committed to the fight against corruption. (…) I also want to reaffirm the position I have taken publicly that more pressure must be brought to bear on Qatar for workers’ and other human rights. The situation today is still not satisfactory.”
This time, the person giving the orders targeted by La Sûreté is not part of the intelligence service, as in the Moroccan division, but the Minister of Labour of the emirate since 2021, Ali ben Samikh Al-Marri. He was previously the face of the Qatari Human Rights Committee. In his dual capacity, he welcomed most of the actors cited in the future scandal to his country on official visits: Panzeri-Giorgi, Visentini and the MEPs Eva Kaili, Alessandra Moretti, Marc Tarabella and Marie Arena. Everyone drank tea in his office in Doha. Sometimes with a bonus: a visit to the World Cup stadium, as he arranged for Marc Tarabella and Alessandra Moretti in 2021.
The meeting in Suite 412
But the events that most interest the OCRC investigators took place in Brussels. On October 9th, a Qatari delegation checked into the Steigenberger Wiltcher’s hotel. A five-star establishment on the avenue Louise where Doctor Al-Marri always stays when he comes to the capital of Europe. The dignitary had already met Eva Kaili there twice, as well as the Vice President and member of the Arab Peninsula delegation. The next day, Antonio Panzeri and Francesco Giorgi have a meeting. By phone, they talk about “our people”. “Their people” are the Qataris. On the video surveillance images, we actually see the two men entering the hotel lobby at 5:52 p.m., the younger man is with a small child in a pushchair, whom he entrusts to a woman who can’t be seen in the video surveillance images.
The meeting between Panzeri and the Qatari Labour Minister in suite 412 lasts less than an hour and twenty minutes. The investigators point out in their report that Panzeri leaves the room with a bag that is thicker than when he arrived.
“At the beginning of 2019, cooperation began” with Qatar, Francesco Giorgi admits during a second interrogation with the police. “We defined the amounts for our respective exchanges, which I have a little difficulty remembering. It was in cash.” The current Labour Minister wanted to improve the image of his emirate. In a document on his computer, Giorgi summarizes the “3-step approach”: “Stop attacks from other countries, promote the positive aspects, attack other countries.”
Antonio Panzeri, in his own hearing, sets the start of his paid collaboration with Qatar as the end of 2019. That is to say, after the end of his term in the Parliament.
A Long-distance assignment
The first payments were made clandestinely, on the orders of Doctor Al-Marri's deputy, nicknamed “the Algerian”. He himself dealt with an intermediary in Turkey before finally appointing someone to carry the suitcase to Belgium. He admitted that Francesco Giorgi was the man who managed the cash for the clandestine organization. At the end of 2019, the Qatari side suggested founding a non-profit organization. This would become Fight impunity. “We had to find a transparent system that didn’t set off any alarms.”
The group enjoys success. For example, the secret meeting at the Steigenberger Wiltcher’s hotel was used to “prepare” the Human Rights subcommittee on November 14, 2022, with Ali ben Samikh Al-Marri as the guest star.
That day, Francesco Giorgi is in the room. Several deputies considered “friends” are seated opposite the Minister. Behind the scenes, Antonio Panzeri is listening in and seems to be pulling all the strings. Not only had he prepared the Minister’s answers, but investigators even suspect him of having orchestrated several questions. Marc Tarabella, who “had not planned to speak”, finally did speak to denounce speeches heard during the meeting that were a little too critical for his taste. Just after a timely phone call between Panzeri and Giorgi.
“Outlandish positions”
Antonio Panzeri and the Mayor of Anthisnes know each other well. They share a common passion for football, Inter Milan in particular. The Belgian MEP assures Le Soir and Knack that he “never received a gift from Qatar”. And that his political positions have always been established with complete independence.
Was the network still active during negotiations on a resolution regarding the World Cup in Qatar? Doubt is possible and is expressed in particular by French MEPs like Marion Aubry (France insoumise party) or Raphaël Glucksmann, who is from the same S&D group as the majority of the suspects: “During the last plenary session in November, I and others opposed the group’s complacent line towards Doha. The revelations [of December 9th] shed a different light on the outlandish positions then taken by certain apologists for Qatar…”
Perhaps the Frenchman is referring to an email from his Italian colleague Andrea Cozzolino, in which he implored his group to show restraint in voting on the anti-Qatar amendments? The Neapolitan elected official who has Francesco Giorgi as his assistant denies any foreign influence. The Belgian courts are today requesting the lifting of his immunity.
Suitcases of cash in Brussels
Friday, December 9, 2022. The Federal Prosecutor’s office and examining Magistrate Claise want to take action. Several people named in the file are about to go abroad for the Christmas holidays. It’s now or never.
In the early morning, special units of the Federal Police wait patiently in the rue Wiertz in Brussels for Francesco Giorgi to enter his home – a stone’s throw from the European Parliament. Due to the parliamentary immunity of his wife, Eva Kaili, the police cannot carry out a search. The hours pass. Finally, it’s time: after almost four hours of waiting, Giorgi leaves the garage in his Land Rover Discovery. Crucial to the investigation: seizing his phone and interrogating him. His arrest marks the beginning of a series of 16 searches in the European district of Brussels and elsewhere in the capital.
The detectives visited not only Panzeri’s home, but also the homes of several parliamentary assistants from the S&D group, European officials, lobbyists, and the offices of various organisations. One of them is Fight impunity.
At 10:02 a.m., Panzeri is arrested. Giorgi, Visentini and Niccolò Figà-Talamanca (the administrator of a non-profit association) are also questioned. Visentini would then be released. To ensure that no evidence disappears, several offices within the European Parliament are already sealed off. Including those of Marie Arena and Marc Tarabella’s deputies (or former deputies).
Just before noon, Le Soir and Knack announced the news of the police raids – the information spreads world-wide. The Federal Prosecutor’s office confirms they have opened an investigation for “suspicions of corruption by a Gulf State” but does not name Qatar, and especially not Morocco.
The operation is already a success: computers and smartphones not the only things that have been seized. At Panzeri's home, investigators found 600,000 euros in cash. And the best, or worst, is yet to come.
Nappies and bundles
On Friday afternoon, the European Quarter of Brussels briefly resembled a film set. Alarmed by events, Eva Kaili contacts her father. He’s visiting Belgium. Knowing that her husband has money at home, Kaili asks her father for help – which she would tell investigators later while being interrogated (adding that she also called Tarabella and Arena).
A few moments later, the man [with the pushchair] is arrested at the Sofitel hotel in Etterbeek. He is carrying a suitcase full of bank notes in denominations of 50 euros, several hundred thousand euros under a few nappies and a bottle for the baby girl. Caught red-handed. The Greek woman’s parliamentary immunity is lifted: investigators can carry out a search of her home. About ten police officers who had returned from searches earlier that day are remobilized. They are accompanied by investigating Magistrate Michel Claise.
In Kaili and Giorgi’s duplex apartment, they find more money, this time hidden in carry-on luggage and designer travel bags. The money is divided into bundles of 20- and 50-euro notes. In total, 150,000 euros. They also find medals and other valuables in the apartment. Kaili is arrested at 5:09 p.m. Her father would also spend a night in prison. “On Friday evening, we cried with joy,” said a person close to the investigation.
A Race against time
Saturday evening, December 10th. Everyone is on edge: Roberta Metsola’s Airbus A320 is 42 minutes late. Investigating Magistrate Claise has urged the President of the European Parliament to return from Malta to search Marc Tarabella’s house in Anthisnes.
The Air Malta flight lands at Zaventem at 7:32 p.m. Now things are really heating up. Anthisnes is more than 100 kilometres away and the search must take place before 9 p.m., because night searches are prohibited in Belgium, with the exception of terrorism cases. Moreover, Metsola must be present. The car races off.
The investigators, the judge, the Federal Magistrate, the President, and her driver: the team of around ten people makes it to the Liège Condroz region at the very last moment; it is half-time of the quarter-final between England and France. The house is carefully searched; there is no cash, nothing suspicious; the detectives leave with two phones and a tablet. To be entrusted to the technical department, as was all the computer equipment taken during the initial searches.
In the meantime, Panzeri’s wife and daughter are arrested in Italy, at the request of the Belgian courts. Eva Kaili is expelled from Pasok, her political party in Greece. And her membership of the S&D has been suspended with immediate effect. She is also relieved of her duties as Vice President. In Greece, the authorities dealing with money laundering have frozen all her assets.
“More transparency”
On Monday, December 12th, the Belgian police carry out a new search, this time in ten offices of the European Parliament in Brussels. The building is almost empty; the MEPs are meeting in Strasbourg for the plenary session. An opportunity for President Roberta Metsola to speak, and her tone is serious: “The European Parliament, dear colleagues, is under attack. European democracy is under attack. And our open, free, and democratic societies are under attack.”
The same week, a large majority of the European Parliament supports the proposed resolution on “the need for transparency and accountability within European institutions.” The MEPs promise more transparency and integrity; they demand the establishment of an independent ethics body and vote that all legislative work related to Qatar be suspended.
Qatar itself, through its representative to the EU, responds to the corruption scandal for the first time: “It is unfounded to link allegations on this matter to the government in Doha.” Qatar claims to act in full compliance with international laws and regulations. According to the AFP news agency, the emirate even warns this could have a negative impact on diplomatic relations and gas supplies.
Morocco, represented by its Minister of Foreign Affairs, also publicly contested any malicious act during the recent visit of Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs: “This partnership [with the EU] is also facing attacks in European institutions, particularly in the Parliament, through questions directed at Morocco, which are the result of a calculated desire to harm it.”
According to Francesco Giorgi, Mauritania is also believed to have engaged the services of Antonio Panzeri. The Embassy in Brussels declined to comment. Panzeri, Kaili, Giorgi and Figà-Talamanca are today behind bars in Belgium. In the meantime, the investigation continues. At the request of the Belgian courts, Roberta Metsola initiated emergency proceedings at the beginning of January to waive the immunity of Cozzolino and Tarabella. Both maintain their innocence and say they want to cooperate with the investigation. Of course, the presumption of innocence applies to everyone involved.
