Belgian Prosecutor's Office appeals the decision not to extradite rapper Valtònyc

The Belgian Prosecutor's Office appealed this Wednesday the ruling of the Ghent Court of Appeal that denied on Tuesday the delivery to Spain of Josep Miquel Arenas, the 28-year-old Mallorcan rapper known as Valtònyc, who has been on the run in that country since 2018 after being convicted by the Supreme Court to three and a half years in prison for glorifying terrorism, threats and insults to the Crown in the content of his songs.

The hearing before the Court of Cassation, the highest instance of the Belgian judicial system, has been set for January 11 in Brussels, according to sources in the defense of Arenas.

The Belgian Prosecutor's Office now has five days to present its allegations and Valtònyc's defense another two to respond, these sources add. The court of cassation, in any case, only considers legal issues and ensures proper compliance with the law by the lower courts, but without reopening the merits of the matter. "I don't see much of a journey [to the appeal]," said lawyer Gonzalo Boye, who is part of the musician's legal team. "The sentence leaves everything well tied," he adds.

The response of the Belgian Prosecutor's Office comes a day after the Ghent Court of Appeal ruled, whose judgment denied extradition on understanding, in the same sense that the court of first instance ruled, that Valtònyc's letters are protected by the freedom of expression and are not a crime in Belgium. The decision again frustrated the intentions of the Spanish justice. And the new appeal adds another stage to a long judicial journey that began in 2018 and has passed through the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Constitutional Court of Belgium.

Josep Miquel Arenas - who in 2018, during a concert, harangued the public to go out and "kill civil guards" when he finished singing - was sentenced by the National Court in February 2017 to three and a half years in prison for glorifying terrorism , insults to the Crown and threats included in the rhymes of songs he had composed in 2012 and 2013. Among other phrases, Valtònyc pronounced some such as "I want to convey a message to the Spanish, ETA is a great nation" or "a pistol shot in the in front of your boss is justified, or there is always waiting for a group to kidnap him ”.

In 2018, after the Spanish Constitutional Court rejected his appeal, the Spanish justice requested his admission to prison, but Valtònyc escaped the country in the trunk of a car to avoid prison. He settled in Belgium, where the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont and other fugitive independence politicians claimed by Spain already resided. And thus began a judicial battle.

Along the way, the

has even taken away an old nineteenth-century law on injuries to the Belgian crown.

The Ghent Court of Appeal, before pronouncing the ruling on Tuesday, submitted a preliminary inquiry to the Belgian Constitutional Court to find out whether or not offenses against the King fall within the freedom of expression in Belgium.

The defense of Arenas considered that a law of this country of 1847 that punished the injuries to the Belgian king and royal family would have been invalidated under the magnifying glass of the current fundamental norm of the country.

And this was finally considered by the Constitutional Court last October, clearing the way for the Ghent court.