Malian singer Rokia Traoré, arrested in June in Italy following a conviction in Belgium in a case of non-representation of a child, will be handed over to Belgium “within ten days”, her lawyer announced to the ‘AFP. Rokia Traoré “will have to be transferred to Belgium within ten days from today,” declared her Italian lawyer, Maddalena Claudia Del Re, in a message sent to AFP at the end of a hearing before the Court of Appeal of Rome.
The singer and guitarist, who was sentenced in absentia in October to two years in prison in this case, was arrested in June at Fiumicino airport in Rome, where she had just landed to give a concert in the country. The Brussels Public Prosecutor’s Office then indicated that “the arrest of Ms. Traoré in Italy follows a decision of the Brussels criminal court of October 18, 2023 having sentenced the person concerned, by default, to a two-year prison sentence of charge of non-representation of a child” to the person having custody of the child.
