Brought down by a bag of cash: The politician fighting to clear her name
A year ago, Eva Kaili was one of the rising stars of European politics.
Then, her career collapsed spectacularly after police found large sums of money in her flat.
The Greek politician was arrested and charged with being part of an international corruption conspiracy in which her partner is also implicated.
Kaili, who denies all charges, was held in prison for four months with limited access to her young daughter.
Her career, it seemed, was over.
But now, there is a chance the case against her might collapse. She hasn’t been formally charged and has returned to work as an MEP, albeit as an independent. She has also launched a legal challenge to clear her name.
“According to my Belgian lawyers, I was used as a trophy,” she says.
As one of the European Parliament’s small group of vice presidents, her remit included technology, artificial intelligence and business foresight. But she was brought down by that most old-fashioned of things – a bag of cash.
The morning her life started unravelling is etched into her memory.
A text from a friend said something had happened to her partner, Francesco Giorgi, and the police were involved.
Kaili panicked, she says, thinking he had been in a car accident. There was no answer from his phone.
Adam Parsons sits down Eva Kaili
‘It was a bag I didn’t recognise’
Then another message arrived – Giorgi had been arrested in an investigation linked to his boss, the former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, who was now a well-paid lobbyist. That was when she went into Giorgi’s office and discovered a suitcase full of cash.
“It’s his private space. I was looking for something to understand why he was arrested,” she says. ” I discovered a bag of money. It was a bag I didn’t recognise. I understood it to be Panzeri’s, so I wanted to return it.”
Kaili claims she called the police and when she couldn’t get through to anyone, decided the best course of action was to get the money out of her flat.
“I didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t want to know what it was.”
Her father Alexandros was visiting and it was decided he would take the money to his hotel which was a short walk from the parliament. The plan, she says, was for Panzeri to pick it up from there. Instead, her father was detained at the hotel and Kaili was arrested.
Kaili claims wiretaps prove money wasn’t hers
The charges against her centred on an alleged cash-for-access scheme in which foreign nations, notably Qatar and Morocco, paid to gain influence at the European Parliament. The interests they sought to advance included softening EU criticism of Qatar’s record on human rights ahead of the 2022 World Cup, and winning support for the country’s aspiration for a visa-free travel deal with Europe. This led to the scandal being nicknamed Qatargate.
Kaili maintains her innocence. She says she had no prior knowledge of the money, that she guessed it was Panzeri’s because of his link to her partner, and simply wanted to get it back to him. After her arrest, the European media went into a frenzy over the case – portraying Kaili as the prosecutor’s big prize in their bid to bust a corruption ring which brought in millions of euros.
In person, Kaili, a former Greek TV presenter, flits between being confident and nervous. She is clearly consumed with the quest to get the case against her dropped. She follows coverage of her case intimately, knows the allegations and has files of documents.
“Was any of the money in that bag your money?” I asked her.
“No. Just Panzeri’s. There are wiretaps that prove this.”
This, she says, is evidence from the secret service seen by her legal team which we cannot verify.
Read more:
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Eva Kaili stripped of role over Qatar corruption scandal
‘They want to bury the case’
In prison, she claims she was intimidated and warned that, if she didn’t make a confession, her toddler would be taken away from her.
“They threatened to give my daughter to the social services. I couldn’t see her for a month. She was 20 months old. She had been constantly with me and suddenly she wasn’t.
“I was shocked these things could happen in Europe.”
The Belgian federal prosecutor told Sky News there was “no evidence of such a practice” and that such behaviour would be “unacceptable in a state governed by the rule of law”.
Her defence hinges on her claims that her right to parliamentary immunity was ignored, that she was spied on and that the prosecutor knows she is innocent but is prolonging the pain to avoid embarrassment.
“They want to bury the case until after the European elections and after the Belgian elections,” she says, both of which are due to be held in June 2024.
In a statement, the federal prosecutor denied that claim, saying the timescale was decided by the magistrate. They also said that efforts made by Kaili’s team to review the investigation could “extend the duration of the proceedings until a date that is likely to be after the election”.
Eva Kaili was a rising star of European politics
Sven Mary, one of her lawyers, told me, with a sliver of knowing hyperbole, that he would compare this to a Belgian form of Watergate. “It’s about the intrusion of the institution,” he said. “We could not believe these things can still happen in 2022 or 2023.
“Clearly something [criminal] happened but the secret services made a file in which a lot of names were mentioned, but not Eva Kaili. And then several months later, her name suddenly appears.”
Nobody questions that at the heart of this something stinks. Panzeri confessed almost immediately – and in January, signed a deal in which he agreed to give evidence in return for a reduced sentence. He then named Kaili’s partner, Giorgi, as a trusted assistant, and later named Kaili herself.
Pier Panzeri. Pic:EPA/Sutterstock
‘Her career is over’
Few people want to talk about the case publicly. Juri Laas, a spokesperson for the European Parliament, is careful with his words.
“The European Parliament has done everything in its power to assist in investigations,” he said.
I spoke to one well-placed official who doesn’t want to go on the record, but knows the case well. “I don’t know if she’s guilty or not, but from a political perspective it may not matter – her career is over.”
The prosecutor was keen to avoid any further speculation.
“The whole case will be heard in open court when it is presented to the trial judge, who will assess the arguments of the parties on the basis of the evidence gathered,” they said.
This is a complex, often bewildering story that began with a bang – politicians arrested, money seized, shockwaves running through the Brussels establishment. Now, it has faded into the political background and it is unclear if any formal charges will be brought against her, or if a trial will ever happen.
Innocent or guilty, for now Eva Kaili will continue to live in limbo.
This year will likely be the second or third warmest ever on record globally, as an “unprecedented streak” of high temperatures persists, UN scientists have warned.
It comes as climate talks between world leaders get under way in Brazil.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Prince William addressed other nations in the Amazonian city of Belem, including Brazil‘s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and officials from Jamaica, which is still reeling from the devastating Hurricane Melissa.
Global average surface temperatures in January to August 2025 were 1.42C above pre-industrial times, before humans started burning fossil fuels at scale, the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation has said.
The Amazon rainforest around COP30 is threatened by climate change and mining, which also raises cash for the state of Para. Pic: Reuters
The level is closing in on the target set in the landmark Paris Agreement, struck at COP21 in 2015, which aimed to limit global warming to “well below” 2C and ideally 1.5C.
That means just 10 years later, it is already looking “virtually impossible” to stick to the Paris goal without at least temporarily overshooting it, the WMO said.
Under this heat, the UK experienced its hottest summer on record, two million people in Pakistan were evacuated from deadly floods and parts of the Amazon rainforest are so dry that once rare wildfires now spread easily.
Hilde Heine, president of the coral atoll country of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, said the “widespread mortality of coral reefs [is] now seemingly inevitable” and the Amazon is “likely not far behind in suffering a similar fate”.
WMO chief Celeste Saulo stressed it would be “still entirely possible and essential” to bring temperatures down to the 1.5C goal again.
That 1.5C limit is “not just a figure” but a “lifeline for Pacific communities and climate-vulnerable nations” grappling with rising and warming seas, said Shiva Gounden, head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
“The legal, moral, and political responsibility for climate action has never been stronger, and the ambition leaders take to Belem will define its success.”
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A climate change protester. File pic: AP
Who’s staying away?
The leaders are in town over the course of two days, before the COP30 climate summit begins on Monday.
But only about 60 are due to attend, compared with more than double the number in some previous years.
The heads of the world’s three largest drivers of climate change, China, the US and India, are all staying at home.
Although many missing leaders will still send officials to the negotiations, diplomats here in Belem are worried that governments are distracted by cost-of-living woes and boosting defence.
They also fear US President Donald Trump will seek to water down any deals from afar by threatening countries that agree to anything too ambitious.
Leaders ‘denying reality’
Mariana Menezes, a Brazilian mother caught up in the devastating floods in Rio Grande do Sul last year, said: “We see world leaders denying reality and making plans to expand fossil fuels.
“These people, who once enjoyed full lives with unforgettable summers and long walks outdoors in their youth, are condemning future generations to lives of pollution and disasters.”
The WMO’s annual State of the Climate reports found that the past 11 years – from the Paris Agreement year of 2015 to 2025 – have each been in the top 11 warmest on record.
And the past three years have been the three warmest years in the record, stretching back 176 years.
In his speech, Sir Keir admitted that the “consensus is gone” on climate change – that cross-party unity on the science has splintered at home and globally.
He made an economic case for net zero, saying the green transition would create jobs and lower household bills.
But despite attacks on climate policies from the Conservatives and Reform, Britons are still concerned about and believe in climate change, and are still buying in to green technology like electric vehicles and heat pumps, Sky News has found.
US soldiers in Germany may not receive their November pay and have been given food bank advice as a government shutdown entered a record 37th day.
Around 37,000 US soldiers stationed in the country face uncertainty over November salary payments.
The Pentagon has warned US troops may not receive mid-month wages despite last-minute funding for October.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent told CBS News: “I think we’ll be able to pay them beginning in November, but by 15 November our troops and service members who are willing to risk their lives aren’t going to be able to get paid.”
The US army also published guidance on its website directing soldiers in Germany to emergency social benefits, loans, and food sharing organisations including Tafel Deutschland – the umbrella organisation of more than 970 food banks in the country – as well as the app Too Good To Go.
Some of the information was later removed from the web page of the garrison in Bavaria, but some of the listings for services for those affected by the shutdown remained on a separate document.
Read more: What impact is the shutdown having?
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Cuts to flights
The US federal government shutdown became the longest in history on Wednesday – with Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, announcing he was ordering a 10% cut in flights at 40 major US airports from Friday.
Tens of thousands of flights have been delayed because of widespread air traffic control shortages, with the shutdown forcing 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Administration agents to work without pay.
Airlines have said at least 3.2 million travellers have already been impacted by air traffic control shortages.
Travellers waiting in long airport security lines in Houston on 3 November. Pic: AP
“Our job is to make sure we make the hard decisions to continue to keep the airspace safe,” said Mr Duffy.
“When we see pressures building in these 40 markets, we just can’t ignore it,” said Bryan Bedford, head of the Federal Aviation Administration.
“We can take action today to prevent things from deteriorating so the system is extremely safe today, will be extremely safe tomorrow.”
The government did not name the 40 sites affected, but the cuts are expected to hit the busiest airports, including those serving New York City, Washington DC, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Dallas.
This would reduce as many as 1,800 flights and more than 268,000 airline seats, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
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Shutdown longest in history
The shutdown, which started on 1 October, has been triggered by politicians failing to pass new funding bills as a stand-off between the Democrats and Republicans over healthcare spending continues.
It has now eclipsed the 35-day federal closure in late 2018 and early 2019 during Donald Trump’s first term – disrupting the lives of millions of Americans as all non-essential parts of government are frozen.
Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate. But 60 votes are needed to pass any funding bill.
The Trump administration has sought to ramp up the pressure on Democrats to end the shutdown and has increasingly raised the spectre of dramatic aviation disruptions to force them to vote to reopen the government.
However, Democrats contend Republicans are to blame for refusing to negotiate over key health care subsidies.
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