He had been missing for several weeks.
Imam Hassan Iquioussen, under the influence of an expulsion, was finally arrested this Friday in Belgium.
The imam had disappeared just after the Council of State gave the green light to the expulsion of the preacher, reputed to be close to the Muslim Brotherhood.
A decision that the Minister of the Interior had immediately described as "a great victory for the Republic".
Aged 58, Hassan Iquioussen, was born in France and lives there regularly but had decided, when he came of age, not to opt for French nationality.
He has five children and 15 grandchildren, all French.
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The Council of State had justified its decision by arguing that its "anti-Semitic discourse", "reiterated (…) after its 2004 apologies", and its "systematic discourse on the inferiority of women", in "videos always available on the Internet", did indeed constitute "acts of explicit and deliberate incitement to discrimination or hatred justifying the expulsion decision".
In addition, the highest administrative court had considered that “this decision does not carry a serious and manifestly illegal attack on the private and family life of Mr. Iquioussen”.
After the decision of the Council of State, the police went in the afternoon to the home of the preacher in Lourches, near Valenciennes, to carry out searches.
The imam was to be arrested before being placed in an administrative detention center.
But at the beginning of the evening, the police officers who came to arrest him did not find him.
Considered to be on the run, the man was listed in the file of wanted persons (RPF).
