Belgium again rejects the delivery of Valtònyc to Spain

The Belgian justice has once again denied the delivery to Spain of the rapper José Miguel Arenas Beltrán,

the Majorcan rapper who fled to Belgium in 2018 to avoid being imprisoned after being sentenced to three and a half years in prison for praising terrorism, threats and slander and serious insults to the Crown.

The Court of Appeal of Ghent (Belgium) decided this Tuesday to reject the extradition of the singer, according to the lawyer Gonzalo Boye.

The prosecution can still appeal the sentence before the Belgian Court of Appeal, a decision that must be made within a maximum of 24 hours.

"The decision, today, was that there will be no extradition," said Valtònyc's other lawyer, Simon Bekaert, in statements to the press after the sentence.

Spain has been claiming him since 2018 for the crimes of glorifying terrorism, threats and insults to the Crown for some songs he wrote in 2012, but the Ghent Court of Appeal has decided for the second time not to hand him over.

The rapper, who in 2018, during a concert, encouraged the public to go out and kill civil guards and prosecutors, joined, after his flight to Belgium, the group of Catalan independence leaders also fugitives in that country, led by former president Carles Puigdemont.

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The Belgian justice orders to review the trial on the extradition of Valtònyc

On December 28, the Belgian justice rejected the delivery of Valtónyc to Spain, considering that the lyrics of the songs are part of freedom of expression, but the prosecution appealed that ruling and the Court of Cassation accepted part of the appeal, asking that re-study the case, substituting the crime of insulting the Crown for that of common insults.

The Belgian justice has already ruled out the other two crimes and this Tuesday the Ghent Court of Appeal “has established, for the second time, that insults to the King of Spain are not a crime in Belgium either”, even if they are understood as common insults, attorney Simon Bekaert said.

“Today was a tough day, because we didn't know what could happen.

I decided to come here for an issue of fundamental rights and in the end it has been so.

I think I have defended freedom of expression as much as I could since I was 18 years old, when all this started, and I want to start living”, said Valtònyc, 28, emotional and on the verge of tears.

"Now is the time to claim that all the people who have suffered this in the Spanish state stop doing it (...) and continue to be politically active in order to start living as well," Valtònyc continued.

The rapper arrived in Belgium in 2018, when he fled from Spain after the National Court confirmed the three and a half year prison sentence for the crimes of insulting the Crown, praising terrorism and threats.

The case has dragged on for four years, due to the delays caused by the pandemic and because the Ghent Court of Appeal has raised the case, first before the Court of Justice of the European Union and then before the Belgian Constitutional Court.

Valtònyc also has open proceedings by the Seville Prosecutor's Office for a hate crime, by shouting at the public during a concert in Marinaleda in 2018: "Put a fucking bomb on the prosecutor" and "shoot a civil guard".