Hassan Iquioussen, the Moroccan imam accused by French authorities of spreading hate, was sent back to Morocco on Friday, Belgium's State Secretary for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor, reported.
Iquioussen had fled to Belgium in Summer after France decided not to renew his residence permit and send him back to Morocco. By order of de Moor, he was held in November in a detention center because he did not have permission to stay in Belgium. “We cannot allow an extremist to just walk around on our territory," De Moor said in a press release. "Those who are not allowed to be here should be sent back. Through good cooperation, we sent this man back to Morocco, his country of origin.”
Iquioussen had been operating in northern France. In announcing his expulsion, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin had said that the imam had “a proselytising discourse laced with statements calling for hatred and discrimination” and “brought a vision of Islam at odds with the values of the French Republic.”
However, Iquioussen took off for Belgium, where he was arrested on 30 September near Mons.
The imam still tried to contest his deportation, but that request was rejected by the Council for Immigration Disputes in early December. However, it was not yet clear whether he should be deported to France or sent immediately to Morocco.
This was the subject of busy consultations between Rabat and Paris in recent weeks.
The Belgian Immigration Department has a radicalism cell that works closely with the various security services to monitor non-Belgians for indications of radicalisation, extremism or danger to national security. This cell monitors what they can do to remove such people from the territory.
