Dakar, June 24 (APS) – Malian singer Rokia Traoré was arrested on Friday at Fiumincino airport in Rome, Italy, when she was to give a concert on Sunday at the Coliseum in Rome, several media announced.
”Malian singer Rokia Traoré was arrested in Italy following a conviction in Belgium in a case of non-representation of a child in 2019,” the Brussels prosecutor’s office said on Sunday, add the same sources.
This arrest comes under a European arrest warrant issued against her by the Belgian courts which accuses her of ”kidnapping” and ”hostage-taking” of her daughter for the reason of ”refusal ” of respect for a judgment granting sole custody to his father, Jan Gossens.
In 2019, a Belgian court ordered the artist to return his daughter, now aged 9, to the child’s father.
Following an international arrest warrant issued against her by Belgian justice, Rokia Traoré had already been arrested in March 2020 in Paris for this same case.
Despite a ban on leaving France, the singer and guitarist flew with her daughter to Mali, where she appealed the decision to the Malian courts which rendered a verdict in her favor.
In 2023, she was sentenced by default to two years in prison in this case for which she has just been arrested in Italy.
ABB/ASG
