The prosecution appealed this decision. Paris asks for the extradition of this preacher, who exiled in Belgium after the issue of an expulsion order against him.
Le Monde
It is a round won for Hassan Iquioussen, exiled in Belgium and claimed by French justice for having subtracted this summer from an expulsion order. After having auditioned the 58 -year -old imam, who disputes his extradition, the Council of the Tournai court, in the west of Belgium, refused to give to France, “said his Belgian lawyer, announced his Belgian lawyer. , Nicolas Cohen, at the France-Presse agency (AFP). The prosecution has confirmed the decision, whose reasons are not yet known.
In his requisitions, the public prosecutor had been favorable to the execution of the European arrest warrant (MAE) targeting Mr. Iquioussen, explained Frédéric Bariseau, spokesperson for AFP. It was not followed and therefore appealed, and “the file will return within fifteen days to the Chamber of Industrials”, continued the magistrate.
“Why look for it? “
Hassan Iquioussen, arrested on September 30 in French-speaking Belgium, found himself this summer at the heart of a politico-legal soap opera in France. At the end of July, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced the expulsion of this Northern preacher, “died” by the intelligence services “for eighteen months” according to him. Surprise: Mr. Iquioussen was not found when this decree, which he had disputed before the court, had been validated by the Council of State, on August 31.
His lawyer, Lucie Simon, later explained that he had “purely and simply respected French law when leaving France for Wallonia”. The lawyer had challenged the validity of the arrest warrant issued by a judge from Valenciennes (North), believing that he is based “on an offense not constituted”. “Why look for it? Why want to come back?”, Was she wondered in early September.
The argument was repeated Friday in Tournai by M e simon and by M e Cohen during their pleadings. “Subtraction to the execution of a distance of distance” accused of the Imam “is not an offense in Belgian law,” said Nicolas Cohen. However, one of the conditions of extradition is that “the two countries incriminate the same behavior”, he argued.
Friday evening, the Tournai prosecutor’s office said that Hassan Iquioussen remained in detention pending the hearing before the Court of Appeal.