Incredible twist in the Qatargate affair: Monday evening, judge Michel Claise, in charge of the case, was forced to withdraw in favor of a Belgian colleague, Aurélie Dejaiffe. The prosecutor’s office announced a decision that the judge would have taken himself so as not to harm the serenity of the investigation. But the mystery deepens when we unravel the origin of the family conflict of interest that motivated this decision.
The judge’s son, Nicolas Claise, has created a company with the son of Maria Arena, a Belgian socialist deputy, who, without being worried, is a leading witness in the corruption case. Qatargate entangles a bogus NGO, Fight for Impunity, led by ex-MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, parliamentary aides and MEPs (Eva Kaili, Marc Tarabella, Andrea Colozzino and Lara Comi) who Panzeri confesses received , at least 2.6 million euros from the three foreign states mentioned (Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania). Mainly in the form of cash and gifts (travel).
Judge Claise never worried Maria Arena whose name appears in the first hours of the dragnet. This close friend of Pier Antonio Panzeri succeeded him at the head of the parliamentary commission for human rights. Panzeri, who obtained the status of repentant, exonerates her. How could Judge Claise not know that his son started a business with Ugo Lemaire, the son of Maria Arena? How did he not sense that this closeness could, from the outset, put him at odds?
In any case, Monday, Maxim Töller, Marc Tarabella’s lawyer (who claims his innocence in this case) puts his foot in the dish. The lawyer sends Monday, at 4:04 p.m., an email to Judge Claise informing him that he is aware of the links between his son and that of Maria Arena. Only then does Judge Claise see fit to deport… Why didn’t he do it sooner? He could have recused himself when Maxim Töller first requested it in February.
We are not at the end of our surprises. We also discover that the activity that binds the two sons consists in marketing medical cannabis (without THC). Maria Arena’s son, Ugo Lemaire, is, indeed, the director of Buddy Belgium, of which Nicolas Claise is the managing partner. The hemp start-up claims on its site a very great success: seven production sites, including one in North Macedonia for the cultivation of THC in a “lenient legal framework”.
However, the Belgian daily Le Soir unearths a symposium on the cannabis industry organized on December 12, 2019 at the European Parliament. The conference, entitled “Cannabis Renaissance”, is sponsored and co-organized by… Maria Arena. The symposium was set up by Active, a Paris-based association with branches in Belgium and Spain, of which Maria Arena’s son is president for Benelux.
So the MEP promotes medical cannabis in the European Parliament which is, moreover, marketed by the company of her son and that of Judge Claise. We have contacted Maria Arena for further explanation, but the Belgian elected official is traveling abroad this week and unavailable at the moment.
“Today we live in a real paradox where the consumption of cannabis for medicinal purposes is difficult to access and where the possession of small amounts of cannabis for recreational purposes is decriminalized but where the production and sale are still prohibited. , she wrote on her blog. A situation that sometimes equates patients and their doctors with outlaws. “A situation that dangerously mixes two activities…
