Italy’s highest court has rejected the musician’s appeal after she was arrested in Rome in June over an international child custody dispute

Malian musician Rokia Traoré, who was arrested in Rome last June over an international child custody dispute, will be handed over to Belgium in the coming days after Italy’s highest court rejected her appeal, her lawyer said on Wednesday.

Traoré, 50, who is also a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR, was arrested on 20 June at Rome’s Fiumicino airport under a European arrest warrant. She had previously been sentenced to two years in prison in Belgium in October 2023 in connection with the custody of her daughter. A Belgian court had ordered her to surrender her nine-year-old daughter to the child’s father, Jan Goossens, who is a Belgian national.