Malian singer Rokia Traoré, convicted by a Belgian court in a conflict between her and her ex-spouse over custody of their daughter, briefly appeared on Wednesday January 8, 2025 in Brussels to report “ongoing discussions” on a possible amicable settlement. The president of the court has set a next meeting for January 22 “to take stock” of the progress of the discussions.
The singer and guitarist, our compatriot Rokia Traoré currently incarcerated in a Brussels prison and who was brought handcuffed to the hearing on Wednesday January 8, 2025, is supposed to be retried in the dispute which has opposed her since 2019 to the Belgian playwright Jan Goossens, writes the newspaper Le Monde.
In October 2023, the Brussels court sentenced him in absentia, in his absence, to a two-year prison sentence for “failure to represent a child”. Arrested in Italy in June 2024 when she came to give a concert there, she was transferred and imprisoned in Belgium at the end of November 2024. Belgian law authorizes her to be retried in his presence. But after a first postponement of the hearing decided at the end of December 2024 by this court, the pleadings on the merits of the case were again postponed on Wednesday, at the request of his defense, underlines the French colleague.
Ongoing discussions
Rokia’s lawyers reported “ongoing discussions”, compared to “a mediation process”, and likely to justify the postponement of the legal debate. “This is real progress”, even if “everyone remains cautious regarding the history of this case”, declared one of them, lawyer Dimitri de Béco. Me Sven Mary, defender of Jan Goossens, confirmed the ongoing discussions between Rokia Traoré and Jan Goossens, without revealing anything about their content. This process is supported by the prosecution. The latter considered that it was in the interest of the couple’s child to see these negotiations succeed.
The president of the court has set a next meeting for January 22 “to take stock” of the progress of the discussions.
The child born in 2015 from the union between Jan Goossens and Rokia Traoré currently lives in Mali, where she goes to school.
The father accuses the mother of having prevented him from seeing the child for five and a half years and of having constantly evaded the Belgian judges. Their conflict became a legal matter in 2019. That year, the singer refused to comply with a first judgment from the Brussels court, leading to the issuance of a first European arrest warrant. She was arrested in Paris in March 2020, but fled, taking advantage of her release. The singer, who believes that the affair “destroyed” her career, has contested from the start the decision of the Belgian courts to entrust sole custody of the child to her father.
El Hadj Amadou Sidibé
