Malian singer Rokia Traoré will be released on Wednesday afternoon, her lawyers announced on Wednesday after the hearing before the Brussels criminal court.
According to the singer’s lawyers and those of the civil party, the director Jan Goossens, an agreement was reached concerning the future of their daughter. Consequently, the criminal court declared admissible the opposition filed by the singer against her sentence to two years in prison.
In October 2023, the artist was sentenced by default to two years in prison for not having respected a decision of the family court concerning the custody of her child, from her relationship with the Belgian playwright Jan Goossens. The latter has not seen his daughter, born in March 2015, since the couple separated in 2019, despite two court decisions in his favor.
The 9-year-old daughter of Rokia Traoré and Jan Goossens lives in Mali. Belgian justice granted custody of the child to his father, but not exclusively. Rokia Traoré did not appear before the Belgian justice system, which asked her to return her daughter to her father. She had been convicted of “failure to present a child”.
The courts first granted visiting rights to the father in June 2019 and then fixed the child’s main residence in Brussels, with custody remaining shared between the two parents.
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Arrested in Rome in June 2024, then extradited to Belgium at the end of November, Rokia Traoré had opposed her conviction. The examination of this opposition, after a preliminary hearing on December 23, was postponed several times, in particular due to discussions between the parties. “These discussions, carried out under the supervision of professionals, resulted in an agreement regarding the future of their daughter“, indicated the singer’s lawyer, Me Dimitri de Béco. “The court declared the opposition admissible, thus allowing the release of my client as of today (Wednesday, Editor’s note)”he added.
Rokia Traoré
