Malian songstress Rokia Traore will be extradited from Italy to Belgium following an outstanding two-year prison sentence.
DAILY POST recalls that Traore was initially detained in France in 2020 on a Belgian arrest warrant due to her failure to obey a court order to hand over her daughter to her Belgian father.
A few months after the singer was conditionally released, she flew on a private flight to Mali, defying a ban from leaving France until her extradition to Belgium.
In October 2023, Traore was sentenced in absentia for two years in prison by a court in Belgium over charges of parental abduction for failing to handle over a child to the person entitled to custody.
She was arrested again in Italy in June 2024, but she challenged the extradition order.
However, a Rome court on Thursday ruled that “Rokia will have to be transferred to Belgium within 10 days from today.”
Her daughter, who is now nine years old, has lived in Mali since age four.