BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Belgian prosecutors said on Thursday they had detained several individuals over suspected bribery in the European Parliament allegedly for the benefit of China's Huawei. Belgian investigators carried out searches of 21 premises across Belgium and in Portugal on Thursday morning.

Belgian police on Thursday raided several addresses in the country as part of a probe into alleged corruption "under the guise of commercial lobbying", prosecutors said. At the heart of the alleged corruption is an ex-parliamentary assistant who was employed at the time as Huawei's EU public affairs director,

The authorities in Belgium have intensified their crackdown on corruption within European institutions, launching a series of raids in connection with political misconduct and lobbying groups.