Singer Rokia Traore faces extradition to Belgium over outstanding prison sentence  

Malian singer and songwriter Rokia Traore will be extradited from Italy to Belgium to serve out the remainder of a two-year prison sentence that was imposed as a result of a custody battle.

This was made known in a statement on Thursday by her attorney, Maddalena Claudia Del Re who was present when the musician was found guilty of kidnapping her parents and convicted in absentia by a Brussels court last year.

She was arrested in Italy in June and challenged the extradition order, but a Rome court ruled Thursday “Rokia will have to be transferred to Belgium within 10 days from today”, Maddalena told AFP.

In March 2020, Traore was taken into custody in Paris according to a European arrest warrant, following a decision made by a Belgian court directing her to give her nine-year-old daughter back to her father.

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A few months later, she flew home to Mali in defiance of a court ban on leaving France, before she could be deported to Belgium over the lingering matter with her baby daddy.

According to the father’s attorney, he hasn’t spoken to his daughter, who resides in Mali, since she turned four years old.

To “find a way out of this nightmare and guarantee their child a future with two parents,” the father reportedly promised to draft a new custody arrangement with Traore that would be approved by the courts in Mali and Belgium.

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