The Court of Cassation of Brussels will decide on January 18 on the extradition of Valtònyc
Belgian courts will decide next Tuesday on a case that has dragged on for three years
BrusselsThe last instance of the Belgian judicial system will decide on Tuesday, January 18 on the extradition of the Majorcan rapper Josep Miquel Arenas, alias Valtònyc, to Spain. The Court of Cassation in Brussels has therefore delayed the decision on the rapper, who is wanted by Spain for glorification of terrorism, insults to the Crown and threats, for another week. The Ghent Court of Appeal had already overturned the European arrest warrant at the end of December, but the Belgian prosecutor's office, on behalf of the Spanish one, decided to appeal to the last judicial instance, which is the one that will decide next Tuesday.
The Spanish authorities have not stopped accumulating setbacks in the case of the Balearic musician. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the Belgian Constitutional Court ruled against the demands of the Spanish state. After the first rejection, a second Belgian judge decided to ask the European justice whether in the case of the accusations of glorification of terrorism the European arrest warrant had been issued correctly, and the CJEU concluded that it had not because Spain was asking for a prison sentence for the crime that had been revised after the rapper had allegedly committed. The same judge then asked the Belgian Constitutional Court whether insulting the Crown was punishable in Belgium, and it ended up striking down a crime dating back to the 19th century.
With all this on the table, the judge in Ghent decided to reject the surrender but the Spanish Prosecutor's Office (through the Belgian one) wanted to exhaust all possible routes because, according to ACN, it considered that the Court of Appeal of Ghent had not sufficiently justified that crimes of glorification of terrorism and insults to the Crown are not punishable under Belgian law.
Next Tuesday, then, will come the final decision in a case that has dragged on for three years. Now the Majorcan musician can move freely in Belgium, but in any other European country the authorities could start to study his extradition process again if the Euro-order remains active in the rest of the Union.
