The lawyers of the Moroccan imam Hassan Iquioussen, claimed by the French courts for having evaded an expulsion order, have taken legal action for public defamation against their client by Gérald Darmanin, it has been reported. learned this Friday from a judicial source.
Lawyers for the 58-year-old imam used a direct summons procedure to go to court. In this direct quote, consulted by AFP, the lawyers accuse the Minister of the Interior of remarks which they consider defamatory with regard to Hassan Iquioussen.
Refusal to extradite
In particular, they dispute statements by the Minister of the Interior on BFMTV on September 2, in which he presented the imam as “a delinquent, a fugitive and a separatist” or affirmed that “Mr. Iquioussen, who has things to reproach, has evaded the court decision”.
Hassan Iquioussen has already won a first round this Friday before a court in Belgium, where he went into exile. After having heard behind closed doors the imam, who contests his extradition, the council chamber of the court of Tournai (western Belgium) “refused the surrender to France”, announced to AFP his Belgian lawyer Nicolas Cohen. . The Tournai public prosecutor’s office announced that it had appealed.
An eviction… aborted
Hassan Iquioussen, arrested on September 30 in French-speaking Belgium, is under a deportation order. At the end of July, Gérald Darmanin announced the expulsion of this preacher from the North, on file S (for state security) by the intelligence services “for eighteen months”, according to him. But Hassan Iquioussen could not be found when this decree, which he had challenged in court, had been definitively validated by the Council of State on August 31.
According to his lawyer, Me Lucie Simon, his client “purely and simply respected French law by leaving France for Wallonia”. The lawyer had challenged the validity of the arrest warrant issued by a judge in Valenciennes (north), believing that it was based “on an unconstitutional offense”.
Born in France, Hassan Quioussen had decided when he came of age not to opt for French nationality. He claims to have given it up at the age of 17 under the influence of his father, and then to have tried in vain to recover it. His five children and his 15 grandchildren are French and established in the North of France: one son is an imam in Raismes, another ex-elected PS in Lourches.
