Radical French imam goes on the run after court rules he can be deported

A European arrest warrant has been issued for a radical imam who has a history of making inflammatory comments about Jews, after the imam went on the run following a court ruling last week permitting the French Government to deport him.

Earlier this month, the Government vowed to change the law in order to be able to deport the imam, but this is no longer necessary after the decision from the Conseil d’Etat, the supreme court for administrative justice, which overturned a previous ruling that suspended Hassan Iquioussen’s deportation order.

The new decision rejected the claims of Mr Iquioussen’s defence that deporting the imam to Morocco would not be a disproportionate interference with his right to lead a normal previous and family life.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who has previously said that Mr Iquioussen is an enemy of France who had “no place” in the country, hailed the decision as “a big victory for the Republic,” adding of the imam: “He will be deported from national soil.”

Mr Iquioussen, 59, is a Moroccan citizen who has lived in France all his life but who has become a symbol of President Emmanuel Macron’s battle against Islamism, whom the President accuses of rejecting French laws and values. He did not take up French citizenship at a younger age and his attempts to do so since then have failed.

Morocco already delivered a laissez-passer to authorise his travel, which cleared the way for Mr Iquioussen’s expulsion “by force”, but the imam won an injunction halting his deportation at the Paris Administrative Court, which ruled that the expulsion was a “disproportionate infringement…of [Iquioussen’s] right to a private and family life.” Mr Iquioussen has five children and numerous grandchildren in France.

During the previous court hearing, prosecutors highlighted statements allegedly made by Mr Iquioussen in 2003 and 2004 in which he described Jews as “miserly usurers” and claimed that Zionists had “connived with Hitler…to push Jews to leave Germany”. He also reportedly said: “The Zionists said…there has to be someone in Europe who does bad things to Jews so that they…will leave [for Israel].” They also noted a conference in 2012 at which Mr Iquioussen allegedly described terrorist attacks in the West as “pseudo-attacks whose objective is to frighten non-Muslims so that they are afraid of Islam and of Muslims,” and claimed that he has also publicly denied the 1915 Armenian genocide and pointed to allegedly misogynistic comments.

In a post on Facebook, Mr Iquioussen “strongly contested” the allegations that he had used “discriminatory or violent language.” His supporters argue that the comments cited in the case were dated and taken out of context, and pointed to other statements by the imam, such as: “We have never had, and have, nothing against Jews because Islam is a religion based on justice.”

Following the latest decision, Mr Iquioussen’s says that he is considering an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

According to a report published by the French Jewish Community Security Service, antisemitic incidents in France have skyrocketed. 

Campaign Against Antisemitism reports on news and incidents relating to antisemitism in France and throughout Europe.