Malian singer Rokia Traore will be sent to Belgium after being jailed in Italy

Famous Mali singer Rokia Traore was arrested in Rome in June because of a disagreement over who should care for her children between countries. She will be sent to Belgium soon because Italy’s top court turned down her appeal, her lawyer said on Wednesday.

Traore, who is 50 years old, is one of the most famous singers in Africa and a UNHCR peace spokesperson.

“Someone was unfair to Rokia. Her voice was not heard by the Belgian criminal court before she was arrested. A lawyer for Rokia called it “now, the fight for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels” in a statement to Reuters.

In its decision late Tuesday night, Italy’s Court of Cassation said yes to transfer, following a decision by the European Court of Justice in favor of the same.

A European arrest warrant led to Traore’s arrest on June 20 at Rome’s Fiumicino airport. In Belgium in October 2023, she was given a two-year jail sentence because of a fight over who would have control of her daughter.

She was arrested at Fiumicino and is now in jail in Civitavecchia, which is close to Rome and the Italian city. She had flown there to hold a show outside of the Colosseum.

Lawyer Del Re said that the way things are done in Belgium goes against Italian constitutional rules and foreign agreements because the suspect was found guilty without being there.

The singer was arrested in France in 2020 on a Belgian warrant because she didn’t follow a court order to give her daughter to her father in Belgium, who used to be the singer’s ex-partner.

A few months after being temporarily freed, she took a private flight to Mali, even though she was told not to leave France until her deportation case was over. Mali is where her daughter lives.