Mali singer Traore extradited to Belgium in child custody case

Malian singer Rokia Traore was extradited from Italy to Belgium and detained on Friday over an outstanding two-year prison sentence handed down in a child-custody dispute, prosecutors said.

The 50-year-old singer and guitarist was sentenced in absentia by a Brussels court last year on charges of parental abduction, in a long-running fight with the Belgian father of her daughter — now aged nine.

She was arrested in Italy in June and a Rome court approved her extradition two months later.

Traore was transferred upon landing in Brussels to Haren prison near the capital, the state prosecutors’ office said in a statement.

Her lawyer, Vincent Lurquin, told AFP she intended to appeal the prison sentence, which would trigger a new trial.

He also said both Traore and the child’s Belgian father Jan Goossens were hoping to “find an agreement in the interests of the child” — and avert a new prison sentence.

The state prosecutor’s office confirmed that Traore would “remain in detention for the duration of the new trial.”

Goossens’ legal team says he has not had any contact with his daughter, who lives in Mali, since she turned four.

Traore was initially arrested in Paris in 2020 on a European arrest warrant over a Belgian court ruling ordering her to return her daughter to her father.

She disregarded a ban on leaving France and flew home to Mali, before being arrested again while in Italy this year.

Beyond her musical career, Traore is also known for her advocacy work for refugees, and was made a UN ambassador for refugees in 2015.

AFP