Fugitive French imam arrested for anti-Semitism

The police took Iquioussen into custody last week in Tournai, Belgium. He had been missing since the French Council of State, the highest court in France, ordered his deportation to Morocco at the end of August. That is reported by Rfi.

The Imam was found guilty of anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred. His expulsion document reads that he held a "proselytising speech interspersed with remarks inciting hatred and discrimination and carrying a vision of Islam contrary to the values of the Republic." According to the Council of State, his "anti-Semitism and systematic speech on the inferiority of women" constituted "acts of provocation... to hatred."

In July, the lawyer of the 58-year-old Imam successfully applied to the Paris court to suspend his deportation. The defence claimed that deportation would disproportionately affect the Muslim preacher's life because he has five children and fifteen grandchildren in France. That is reported by Le Monde. However, the decision of the Parisian court was overturned in an appeal.

Iquioussen owns a YouTube channel and has about 178,000 subscribers. His courses and sermons on Islam have been viewed about 33 million times.

French

Iquiousson, who chose a Moroccon nationality at 18, was refused French nationality twice later. The reason for that was that he had "very strong ties" with the Union of Islamic Organisations in France, he claims. In a YouTube video dating from last July, the Imam says to be "French in heart and soul, in thought and culture."