The Conseil des littieux des Foreigners, an independent administrative court emergency seized of a request from the preacher’s lawyers, said the appeal on Monday intended to prevent its possible expulsion. According to this body, it must therefore be given to the French authorities. But the outcome of the case remains uncertain.
by Jean-Pierre Stroobants (Brussels, correspondent)
The case seemed simple at the start: France wanted to recover Hassan Iquioussen, a 58 -year -old Moroccan preacher “Fiche s”, to expel him towards Morocco. And Belgium, where he had taken refuge, would quickly deliver him on the basis of the European arrest warrant issued by Paris. Eight weeks later, the case was singularly complicated, and his outcome is still uncertain.
Monday, December 5, in Brussels, it is the Council for Litigation of Foreigners, an independent administrative jurisdiction seized “in extreme emergency” of a request from the lawyers of the Imam, which intervened. He declared inadmissible this recourse intended to prevent a possible expulsion of Mr. Iquioussen who, according to this body, must indeed be given to the French authorities. The latter can appeal, but this procedure is not suspensive.
Previously, his defenders had successfully pleaded, before the Belgian justice, the illegality of such a discount. Stressing that European Union law – and therefore that of Belgium – does not provide for a criminal sanction in the event of “subtraction of the execution of a distance of distance”, which is the incrimination chosen by France in the European arrest warrant which she issued against the preacher of Moroccan nationality, born in Denain (North).
Arrested on September 30 near the city of Mons, where he had taken refuge after having fled, according to him, France on August 25, the Imam had introduced an appeal against this mandate. The Tournai summons court, then the Mons Court of Appeal, proved him right. And at the beginning of November, he left Tournai prison to be under house arrest, under electronic surveillance.
“Perfect collaboration”
To try to get around this judicial obstacle, the Belgian authorities, who had indicated from the start their desire to expel Mr. Iquioussen, then proceeded to an administrative arrest. On November 16, the Imam was placed in the “closed return center” of Vottem (a detention center in the province of Liège) for its distance. An order to leave the territory had been notified to him the day before, hence the administrative appeal filed by his Belgian lawyer, M e Nicolas Cohen, before the Conseil du litigation des foreigners.
Using the words of the Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne, the Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor, had called the imam “hate preacher” and stressed that, given Because he was in an irregular stay in Belgium, he would be given to France as soon as possible. “The French authorities are still claiming its return in order to be able to send it to Morocco,” said the office of the Secretary of State in a press release. The lawyers of the imam mentioned a “purely scandalous” decision.
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