Malian singer Rokia Traoré, in a case of non-representation of a child, saw her appeal against her surrender to Belgium rejected by the Italian Court of Cassation. It will be transferred to the Belgian authorities “in the coming days”announced his lawyer to Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday, November 20.
“Rokia was sentenced to two years in prison during a trial which took place in Brussels without her being informed, in her absence and without her being able to be defended by a lawyer, in violation of the rights of defense and the principle of a fair trial”said his Italian lawyer, Maddalena Claudia Del Re, in a message sent to AFP. “Today, the battle for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels”she concluded.
The singer and guitarist, who was sentenced in absentia in 2023 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.
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The Brussels public prosecutor then specified that “the arrest of Mme Traoré in Italy[sai]t following a decision of the Brussels criminal court of October 18, 2023 having sentenced the person concerned, by default, to a sentence of two years’ imprisonment on the charge of non-representation of a child” to the person having custody of it.
Rokia Traoré had already been arrested in March 2020 in Paris under a European arrest warrant, because a Belgian court had ordered her to return her minor daughter to the child’s Belgian father, the playwright Jan Goossens. Despite a ban on leaving France, she flew with her daughter to Mali.
Besides her musical career, Rokia Traoré is also known for her support for refugees. She became a UN refugee ambassador in 2015.
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