ROKIA TRAORE: One of Africa’s best-known vocalists
Photo credit: CC/Erik (HASH) Hersman
Rokia Traore, an award-winning Malian singer-songwriter, will soon be extradited to Belgium.
The 50-year-old celebrity was detained under a European arrest warrant issued in Belgium when she landed at Rome’s Fiumicino airport on June 20, prior to giving a concert outside the Colosseum.
Although Traore intends to take her case to the European Court of Justice, in the meantime Italy’s Court of Cassation has rejected an appeal and authorised her extradition on November 20.
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Traore, one of Africa’s most popular vocalists, was sentenced to two years in prison by a court in Belgium in October 2023 following a battle with her former partner, Belgian playwright and director Jan Goossens, over custody of their nine-year-old daughter.
Custody battle with Belgian ex-partner
The couple separated in 2018 and since then have been in conflict over the child, who habitually lives with her mother in Mali.
Nor was this the first time the singer was detained regarding the ongoing custody war. She was initially arrested in France in 2020 on an earlier Belgian arrest warrant after ignoring a court order to hand over her daughter to her estranged former partner.
Intercepted in Paris, Traore claimed that she was actually travelling to Europe for a custody hearing.
“Despite living in Mali, I have always answered to the Belgian justice system,” she said.
On this occasion she was released on the understanding that she would comply with certain conditions. Instead, she flew back to Mali – and her daughter – by private jet some months later.
Following confirmation of Traore’s extradition, her lawyer maintained that the singer was the victim of an injustice.
Father has not seen child for five-and-a-half years
“Rokia was arrested without the Belgian criminal court hearing her voice. Now, the battle for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels,” Maddalena Del Re told Reuters.
Jan Goossens lawyer, Sven Mary, insisted that Rokia Traore’s rights had always been respected by Belgium’s justice system although in effect she had claimed sole custody of her daughter, denying the child any contact with her father or his family for more than five-and-a-half years.
“For years she has chosen to ignore Belgian justice,” he declared.
The daughter of a Malian diplomat, Traore was a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR between 2016 and 2018.
She has pioneered the fusion of African and western styles, winning the prestigious French music award Victoire de la Musique in 2008. Traore has also worked with the US theatre director Peter Sellars and in 2019 Traore was guest director of the Brighton festival.