His lawyer confirmed Friday to AFP information from Radio France International. Famous Malian singer Rokia Traoré was arrested on Tuesday in France under a European arrest warrant issued by Belgian justice, linked to a dispute over the custody of her daughter, born to a Belgian father.
According to Me Kenneth Feliho, the arrest took place at the Parisian airport of Roissy, while the singer arrived from Bamako. The arrest is linked to a European arrest warrant issued in Brussels for "kidnapping, forcible confinement and hostage taking".
This arrest warrant stems from the singer's non-compliance with a judgment rendered at the end of 2019 requiring her to surrender her five-year-old daughter to her Belgian father, from whom Rokia Traoré is separated.
A Brussels investigating judge is behind this arrest warrant, the Belgian capital's prosecutor's office told AFP, without further details.
According to RFI, the Brussels court of first instance had decided to entrust "sole custody" of the child to his father.
>> To read also, on RFI: "The arrest of the Malian artist Rokia Traoré in France makes react"
A decision that the singer challenged "from the start", according to Me Feliho, of the Brussels bar. She had appealed the trial judgment.
"It is unbelievable that the Belgian judge has decided that the connecting link (of the child) is Belgium, while his father lives in Marseille", in the south of France, continued the lawyer.
According to him, the girl has lived in Mali for more than four years, "she only spent four months in Belgium".
Audience in Paris on March 18
Rokia Traoré was imprisoned after her arrest and a hearing is now scheduled in Paris on March 18 to examine the request for the singer's surrender to Belgium.
Friday afternoon, an online petition at the initiative of the Collectif des Mères veilleuses (Single-parent mothers of Belgium) to demand the release of Ms. Traoré had collected more than 5,000 signatures.
The petition denounces among other things "the dysfunctions of our Belgian justice with regard to single mothers, (...) unceasingly held responsible for the disinterest and the disinvestment of fathers with regard to children."
Rokia Traoré, singer and guitarist, is particularly known for her commitment to refugees and for having been appointed in 2016 as a goodwill ambassador by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
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