Jailed in Italy, Malian singer Rokia Traore to be handed over to Belgium
ITALY-MALI/TRAORE-TRIAL (CORRECTED):CORRECTED-Jailed in Italy, Malian singer Rokia Traore to be handed over to Belgium
Nov 22 - Renowned Malian singer Rokia Traore, arrested in Rome in June over an international child custody dispute, will be handed over to Belgium in the coming days after Italy's highest court rejected her appeal, her lawyer said on Wednesday.
Traore, 50, is one of Africa's best-known vocalists and was a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR from 2016 to 2018.
"Rokia suffered an injustice. She was arrested without the Belgian criminal court hearing her voice. Now, the battle for Rokia's rights moves to Brussels," her lawyer Maddalena Del Re said in a statement to Reuters.
She said that Italy's Court of Cassation followed a European Court of Justice ruling issued on Sept. 20 in favour of extradition in its decision late on Tuesday.
Traore was arrested on June 20 at Rome's Fiumicino airport under a European arrest warrant. She was sentenced to two years in prison in Belgium in Oct. 2023 in connection with a battle over custody of her daughter.
Since her arrest at Fiumicino, she has been in jail in Civitavecchia, near the Italian capital, where she had flown to hold a concert outside Rome's Colosseum.
Traore was first arrested in France in 2020 on a Belgian warrant after failing to follow a court order connected to the singer's dispute with her estranged former partner, Jan Goossens, over custody of their nine-year-old daughter.
Months after she was conditionally released, she flew to Mali on a private flight, defying orders not to leave France until her extradition case was processed. Her daughter lives in Mali.
Sven Mary, Goossens's lawyer, said: "Rokia Traore claimed de facto exclusive custody and has been denying her daughter contact with her father, and his entire family, for more than a five-and-a-half years now."
Del Re, who took over the singer's defence in June 2024, told Reuters: "Ms Traore never intended to break off relations between the daughter and her father."
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