Rabat – Kaoutar Fal, who was arrested in Brussels on suspicion of spying for Moroccan intelligence services and later released, has returned home to Morocco.
Fal’s lawyer Julien Hardy told Belgian television channel RTBF that Fal went back to Morocco Monday, July 23.
“Mrs. Fal decided to leave Belgium and booked a flight to Morocco that she has already taken. She left on a voluntary basis.”
She was not expelled from Belgium, he asserted.
The Indictments Division and the Aliens Litigation Council (CEC) spokesman said earlier that she was detained “on the basis of another article according to which she is illegally in the territory, and because she represents a threat to national security.”
Fal, of Moroccan nationality, was released by the Indictments Division and the CEC because her detention in a closed center was found to be illegal, Hardy told Belgian news agency Belga last week.
Fal was arrested on July 11 and detained in the 127 bis closed center in Steenokkerzeel, Belgium, when she went to Charleroi Airport to pick up her passport. Her passport had been seized during a previous detention.
Fal was arrested for the first time on May 29, when she had just landed at Belgium’s Charleroi Airport, she said in a letter.
Illegal detention
According to the Aliens Office, Belgian State Security had asked that Fal be arrested because she represented a risk to national security. “It is important for us to send her back to Morocco as soon as possible,” said the CEC spokesman.
“My client was released by the council chamber which judged her detention in a closed center as illegal. The decision was then confirmed by the CEC on July 9,” Hardy told Belga.
“She was released on July 10. But she did not get her passport back which would have allowed her to leave the Belgian territory. On July 11, she was again held in detention.”
Kaoutar Fal’s lawyer lodged a new appeal with the CEC because his client suffered “illegal deprivation of liberty,” he told Belgium channel VRT on July 12.
“The Aliens Office has taken more than a dozen decisions in total, including two on prohibitions of entry. We contest the legality of this,” said Hardy Monday to RTBF.
“Several legal proceedings are underway to this effect and others will be introduced.”
