Belgium’s expulsion of Imam Hassan Iquioussen to Morocco “is not the end point of this legislative saga”, his lawyer told BFMTV. According to her, an annulment of this court decision by the administrative court is still possible.
The expulsion of Moroccan imam Hassan Iquioussen to Morocco by Belgium is in no way the “end point of this legal saga”, said his lawyer Me Lucie Simon this Sunday on BFMTV. On Friday, this preacher from the north of France was sent back on a plane to Casablanca after the issuance of a laissez-passer by the Moroccan consulate in Liège on Thursday.
The man had taken refuge in Belgium at the end of the summer, after his expulsion from France for “comments inciting hatred and discrimination”. The French Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin announced his expulsion at the end of July, and he specified that the French expulsion order was worth a “return ban” on European soil.
“A political stepping stone to justify legislative reform”
“It is far from being the end point to what some have called ‘a legal saga'”, declared Me Lucie Simon. “We are on the eve of the decision of the administrative court of Paris (…) which has not yet decided whether this expulsion was illegal or not”.
“If we obtain the cancellation of the expulsion decision, then there should logically be a rerouting of Hassan Iquioussen in France and the issuance of a resident card”, continued the lawyer.
On our set, Me Lucie Simon also regretted a decision which for her is akin to “a political stepping stone to justify legislative reform (the immigration bill)”. “For me, these are the symptoms of a democracy which is rather sick. I think we all have to be worried about this expulsion”, she lamented, regretting to see hovering “the shadow of the ministry of Justice” on this decision.
“A real uprooting”
The potential cancellation of this decision should, according to her, take place during the first half of 2023. The lawyer also indicated that her client Hassan Iquioussen “obviously” wanted to return to France.
“For him it’s a real uprooting. We are not in the case of a foreigner who would return to his country of origin. We are in the case of an exile, that is to say that he feels like condemned to leave his country of origin”, develops the lawyer, who recalls that “it is someone who was born in France, whose whole family is French, and who overnight, against a backdrop of eminently political and media decision, will absolutely have to leave everything”.
Finally, according to her, Hassan Iquioussen “does not project himself as living in Morocco at all. He has all his habits, his friends, his relatives in France and therefore he has faith in French justice”.
