Former EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and two others have been formally accutilized of procurement fraud and corruption, conflict of interest and violation of professional secrecy, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office declared on Wednesday.
The three individuals were detained on Tuesday as part of an EU fraud investigation and have now been released while the investigation is ongoing, EPPO declared, adding they were not considered a flight risk.
EPPO referred to the other two suspects as a senior staff member at the College of Europe in Bruges and a senior official from the European Commission. Three sources notified Reuters that one of the detainees was senior EU diplomat Stefano Sannino.
Neither Mogherini nor Sannino could be reached for comment.
“All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty by the competent Belgian courts of law,” EPPO also declared.
Their arrests followed raids at the EU’s diplomatic service in Brussels, at the College of Europe – an elite university in Bruges that educates many EU officials – and at the houtilizes of suspects.
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