The Council of State has given the green light to the expulsion of Imam Iquioussen, announced this Tuesday morning Gérald Darmanin on Twitter. But the preacher could not be found in the evening. Considered to be on the run, he was entered in the file of wanted persons (RPF).
As for his expulsion, the highest administrative court rejected the argument that this decision would constitute a “serious and illegal attack” on his private and family life. On August 5, the Paris administrative court had suspended the expulsion to Morocco of this imam reputed to be close to the Muslim Brotherhood, judging that it would cause a “disproportionate attack” on his “private and family life”, but the ministry of the Interior appealed against this decision.
The interim judge of the Council of State considers that “his anti-Semitic remarks, made for several years at numerous widely publicized conferences, as well as his speech on the inferiority of women and their submission to men constitute acts of provocation explicit and deliberate discrimination or hatred justifying the expulsion decision. He also considers that this decision does not cause a serious and manifestly illegal attack on the private and family life of Mr. Iquioussen, ”explains the highest French administrative court in its press release.
A “weakened rule of law”
Within the Iquioussen clan, it is radio silence. “Neither my father nor the other members of the family wish to comment,” repeats Soufiane Iquioussen, one of the five sons of the preacher. The imam’s lawyer, Me Lucie Simon, reacted on Twitter by believing that this decision symbolized “a weakened rule of law” and deplored “an alarming context of pressure from the executive on the judiciary”.
“The legal fight continues, the Administrative Court of Paris will have to look into the merits of the case soon, and Hassan Iquioussen is studying the possibility of seizing the ECHR again”, she added. Moreover, nothing would prevent this examination on the merits from taking place after the expulsion of the imam, if this were to be implemented very quickly. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had refused to suspend the expulsion at the beginning of August, explaining that it only granted provisional measures of suspension “in exceptional circumstances”, when the applicant was exposed “to a real risk of irreparable damage”.
The last stay in Morocco of the 58-year-old imam, who was born and raised in France, “goes back several years”, according to a source who knows him well. In the Cherifian kingdom, “only his wife” has family based in Casablanca.
Searches in progress
After the decision of the Council of State, the police went in the afternoon to the home of the preacher. Searches were still in progress at 9 p.m. at the home of the Iquioussens, in the small town of Lourches (North), near Valenciennes. Officers were searching the family’s house and extensive land that once belonged to EDF. The area was sealed off by law enforcement. But the imam could not be found and, according to a source familiar with the matter, he could be in Belgium.
From Place Beauvau, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, welcomed the decision of the Council of State in the evening, hailing a “victory for the Republic”. Hassan Iquioussen will be placed in an administrative detention center before his deportation, he continued. Before giving some figures: 786 “radicalized foreigners” have been expelled from the territory in the past five years. The minister has counted 74 “in recent months”.