After a long legal back and forth between France and Belgium, Belgian authorities deported Moroccan imam Hassan Iquioussen from the European country to Morocco, as reported by French news agency Le Figaro, according to Agence France-Presse.
After Morocco gave consular authorization to deport Iquioussen, the Moroccan imam was put on a flight from Brussels to the Moroccan city of Casablanca at noon on Friday, the imam’s lawyer, Mai Lucy Simon, told AFP.
Nicole de Maur, Belgian Minister of State for Asylum and Migration, hailed the “good cooperation” between Belgium and France in the Iquioussen case.
We cannot allow extremists to roam our country. “Anyone who has no right to be here should be deported,” Le Figaro said, quoting Moore.
The Moroccan imam, who was arrested in Belgium in September last year, has been threatened with a European arrest warrant from France.
France’s Council of State has given the green light for Iquioussen’s deportation in 2022 after France’s Interior Ministry accused the Moroccan imam of “preaching a speech with incitement to hatred and discrimination”.
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According to consistent reports, Brussels tried to deport the imam to France last November, but the French responded with silence.
Belgium then decided to deport Iquioussen to Morocco rather than “irrationally” detaining him.
“In order not to unduly prolong Hassan Iquioussen’s detention, the person in question will be brought back to the Moroccan border,” Belgian authorities told the BFMTV news channel.
The news comes after Moroccan authorities, in September 2022, revoked a consular authorization they had issued to deport the 58-year-old imam back to his home country.
Iquioussen, born in France, is a French father of five and grandfather of fifteen. However, the imam is not a French citizen and his request last year to extend his 10-year stay in the European country followed suit. the controversy surrounding his possible deportation
