Malian singer Rokia Traoré, requested by Belgian justice, was transferred from Italy on Friday and imprisoned in Haren prison, near Brussels, the prosecutor’s office in the Belgian capital told Agence France Presse (AFP). Rokia Traoré, 50, is facing a conviction for non-representation of a child handed down in 2023 by the Brussels court. A conflict has pitted him since 2019 against Belgian playwright Jan Goossens over custody of the daughter born from their union in 2015.
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“ The battle for Rokia Traoré’s rights will now be played out in Belgium », Said her Italian lawyer, Maddalena Claudia Del Re, shortly before the singer’s extradition to Brussels, after more than 5 months spent in an Italian prison. Extradition authorized by the Court of Cassation of Rome which rejected, on November 19, the appeal of the Malian artist on the grounds that she had to follow the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union, favorable to extradition , recalls the RFI correspondent in Roma, Anne Le Nir.
This case, centered on the custody of the 9-year-old girl, who lives in Mali, that Rokia Traoré had with her former Belgian spouse, Jan Goossens, raises numerous international legal questions, according to Maître Del Re: “ Rokia Traoré had not been informed of the trial at the Brussels Criminal Court », in October 2023, after which she was sentenced to two years in prison for failure to represent a child. But ” could therefore not be present, nor be defended by a lawyer “. What Maddalena Claudia Del Re describes as “ serious violation of the rights of the defense and the principle of a fair trial “.
Under a European arrest warrant, Rokia Traoré was arrested last June at Fiumicino airport in Rome, where she had just landed to give a concert in Italy.
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