By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Rokia Traore, a Malian singer arrested three weeks ago in Italy over child custody dispute, has appealed to European Union (EU) court to resist an extradition request from Belgium, her lawyer told reporters on Friday.
The 50-year-old entertainer is one of Africa’s best-known vocalists and a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations’ refugee agency, the UNHCR.
She was arrested on June 20 at Rome’s Fiumicino airport under a European arrest warrant.
She had been sentenced to two years in prison in Belgium last October in connection to a child custody battle.
Since her arrest at Fiumicino, she has been in jail in Civitavecchia, near the Italian capital.
The singer had flown to Italy to hold a concert outside Rome’s Colosseum before she was taken into custody.
“Ms Traore was sentenced in Belgium in her absence and without the certainty that she had knowledge of the trial. Even worse, the trial took place without a defence lawyer,” her Italian lawyer Maddalena Del Re said.
According to Del Re, this constitutes possible ground for opposition to her extradition, adding that she had asked the Luxembourg-based EU court to rule on the matter as it has jurisdiction over EU-wide arrest warrants.
A prosecutor at Rome’s appeal court however has agreed that Traore may leave prison in favour of house arrest if she can find a home in Rome, the lawyer said.
Heritage Times HT reports that the singer was first arrested in France in 2020 on a Belgian arrest warrant after failing to follow a court order to hand over her daughter to her Belgian father, the artist’s estranged former partner.
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, 9, lives in Mali.
Traore hopes to be reunited with her “as soon as possible,” Del Re said.
