The Emirates reject the extradition of Nordin El Hajjioui to Belgium
In all, three requests for Nordin El Hajjioui’s extradition to Belgium have been rejected by a Dubai court, report Het Laatste Nieuws. Information confirmed by the Belgian ambassador to the office of the Minister of Justice, Van Quickenborne. “We will have to examine the judgment,” said his spokesperson. We are going to demand explanations for these court decisions and we are certainly not going to stop there”. Belgium had signed an extradition agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last December, after extradition requests had been translated for more than a year. “These requests predate the signing of the treaty”, specifies the spokesperson.
Read: Spain refuses to extradite man accused of kidnapping in Morocco
Antwerp justice sentenced Nordin El Hajjioui, 34, in 2016 to 40 months in prison suspended for drug trafficking. Still, the drug smuggler fled to Dubai, where he was briefly arrested. He will pay a bail of 10,000 euros to regain his freedom. According to the Antwerp public prosecutor’s office, he was leading cocaine smuggling operations into the port of Antwerp from the Emirati city.