a European arrest warrant issued against the imam

A European arrest warrant has been issued by an investigating judge in Valenciennes (North) against the preacher Hassan Iquioussen, considered to be on the run after the validation of his expulsion order, we learned on Friday from close sources. folder. Revealed by BFMTV, this European arrest warrant was issued for “evading the execution of a deportation decision” (article L824-9 of the foreigners’ code), sources familiar with the matter told AFP. .

Read also: In the footsteps of Hassan Iquioussen, the unwanted imam

Person at the home of the preacher of Moroccan nationality

The Council of State, the highest French administrative court, gave the green light last Tuesday to the expulsion to Morocco of a preacher reputed to be close to the Muslim Brotherhood, in accordance with the request of the Minister of the Interior, who accuses him of “anti-Semitic remarks” in particular. Living in the north of France, in Lourches, Imam Hassan Iquioussen held, according to the elements collected by the northern prefecture of which AFP was aware, speeches “hate towards the values ​​of the Republic including secularism” and to develop “anti-Semitic theses”. He is also accused of inciting “a form of separatism” and of fueling “conspiracy theses around Islamophobia”.

After the decision of the Council of State, the police went Wednesday to the home of the preacher of Moroccan nationality, in Lourches near Valenciennes (North) to arrest him to deport him to Morocco. But they did not find him, according to a source familiar with the matter who raised the possibility that he was in Belgium. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, announced on July 28 the expulsion of this man, born in France but of Moroccan nationality. An expulsion suspended on August 5 by the administrative court of Paris, which considered that it would cause a “disproportionate attack” on his “private and family life”. The Interior Ministry appealed against this decision.