Malian singer Rokia Traoré, requested by Belgian justice for a family dispute, was transferred to Brussels on Friday from Italy where she was arrested last June under a European arrest warrant.
“She arrived in Belgium and was imprisoned in Haren prison”, near Brussels, a spokesperson for the prosecution told AFP without further details.
Rokia Traoré, 50, is facing a two-year prison sentence for failure to represent a child, a sentence handed down in October 2023 by the Brussels court.
A conflict has pitted him since 2019 against Belgian playwright Jan Goossens over custody of the child born from their union in 2015, a little girl who is now 9 and a half years old and whom her father says he has not seen for five years and a half.
Towards a second trial
According to her Belgian lawyer Vincent Lurquin, the singer had to notify the Belgian justice system, upon her arrival in Belgium, of her opposition to the default conviction of 2023, in order to be able to be retried in his presence.
In this hypothesis, “she will remain in detention for the duration of this second trial”, underlined the spokesperson for the prosecution. This new hearing could take place as early as December.
Contacted by AFP, Me Lurquin said he wanted to “find an agreement in the interests of the child” with the opposing party, in order to avoid a new conviction for Rokia Traoré.
Since her arrest in Italy at the end of June, while she was coming to give a concert there, Rokia Traoré opposed her handover to Belgium. But she has exhausted all her appeals before the Italian courts. The last one was rejected on November 20 by the Italian Court of Cassation, paving the way for his transfer.
The singer and guitarist had already been arrested in March 2020 in Paris because she refused to submit to the decision of a Belgian judge. Despite a ban on leaving France, she flew with her daughter to Mali.
A custody disagreement
One of the bones of contention between the parents concerns the girl’s main place of residence, in Belgium or Mali, and who will have to travel to share custody with her ex-partner.
Jan Goossens, 53, wants “that his daughter spends her vacation with him in Belgium, and that there is shared parental responsibility,” one of his lawyers, Mr. Sven Mary, told AFP, emphasizing “neither “not insist” that the child’s main residence be fixed in Brussels. The little girl goes to school in Bamako.
“Jan Goossens has wanted from the beginning, and until today, to establish a balanced solution for the sole well-being of his daughter, which guarantees the presence of both parents in her life, between two countries and cultures,” said added Me Mary.
In addition to her musical career, Rokia Traoré has also distinguished herself through her work alongside the UN to raise awareness of the situation of refugees, particularly in Africa.
Jan Goossens is known in Belgium for having been artistic director of the Royal Flemish Theater (KVS), a major Dutch-speaking cultural institution in Brussels. This native of Antwerp was also from 2016 to 2021 the general director of the Marseille Festival, in France.
