{"id":23607,"date":"2018-11-28T19:23:06","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T19:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23607"},"modified":"2018-11-28T19:23:06","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T19:23:06","slug":"court-rejects-le-pen-bid-to-halt-recovery-of-eu-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23607","title":{"rendered":"Court rejects Le Pen bid to halt recovery of EU money"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A top European Union<\/a> court has upheld the bloc’s decision\u00a0to recover money from far-right politician Marine Le Pen<\/a>, delivering the former French<\/a>\u00a0presidential candidate a second legal setback this year.<\/p>\n

The EU’s General Court, its second highest court, on Wednesday\u00a0rejected a bid by Le Pen to halt the repayment of parliamentary expenses she used to pay a bodyguard.<\/span><\/p>\n

Le Pen, member of the European Parliament from 2009 until 2017 for the National Front – now renamed National Rally – party, hired the bodyguard on a three-month contract in 2011 with a monthly pre-tax salary of over $10,000.<\/p>\n

According to the EU anti-fraud agency, OLAF, which started an investigation into the case in 2014<\/span>, a total sum of $46,902 should be paid back by Le Pen because it was wrongfully paid to the assistant.<\/p>\n

Le Pen said the original decision was based on factual errors, misuse of power, discrimination and a lack of independence by OLAF.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The General Court rejected those claims, saying they lacked evidence or legal basis.<\/span><\/p>\n

The far-right leader can still appeal the decision at the European Court of Justice, the EU\u2019s top court.<\/p>\n

It is not the first time Le Pen has to pay back money to the EU she had spent wrongly.<\/p>\n

In June, the General Court had upheld a parliamentary decision to recover $470,346 paid to another person hired by Le Pen as a personal assistant.<\/p>\n

Controversial leader<\/h2>\n

Le Pen has\u00a0also been involved<\/a> in a court case\u00a0for the “distribution of violent images” on Twitter.<\/span><\/p>\n

The tweets, written shortly after the 2015 Paris attacks, showed executions carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (<\/span>ISIL<\/a>,\u00a0also known as ISIS) members and included\u00a0an image of the body of American journalist James Foley, who\u00a0<\/span>was decapitated<\/a>, as shown in a widely circulated video by a member of ISIL, and a captured Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If convicted, Le Pen could potentially face three years in jail and a 75,000 euros ($90,000) fine.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, Le Pen’s political group Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) to which Le Pen’s party belongs, was ordered in July<\/a> to pay back more than $580,000 claimed in unjustified expenses, including expensive champagne and dinners.<\/p>\n

The ENF group brings together 35 MEPs, of which almost half are from Le Pen’s party. It also includes members of other far-right European parties like the Austrian FPO, the Italian League and the Dutch Party for Freedom.<\/p>\n

Some of the group’s 2018 funds were frozen by the European Parliament as a precaution to ensure it could pay back the money.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A top European Union court has upheld the bloc’s decision\u00a0to recover money from far-right politician Marine Le Pen, delivering the former French\u00a0presidential candidate a second legal setback this year. The EU’s General Court, its second highest court, on Wednesday\u00a0rejected a bid by Le Pen to halt the repayment of parliamentary expenses she used to pay…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":23608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}