Stripped of their nationality, expelled, banned for 20 years: two Moroccans overturn the decision
The Netherlands had withdrawn Dutch nationality from two Moroccans born in the country, before ordering their departure to Morocco and barring them from the Schengen Area for twenty years. On June 3, the courts dealt the authorities a double setback.
The two men were born in the Netherlands, in 1988 and 1992 respectively. Moroccan by birth, they obtained Dutch nationality in 2003, at the same time as their father.
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Their situation changed after their conviction by the Rotterdam court in October 2019. Each was sentenced to twelve months in prison, six of them suspended, for acquiring or attempting to acquire knowledge in preparation for committing a terrorist offense. The convictions became final in March 2022.
On December 19, 2024, the Dutch authorities then decided to withdraw their Dutch nationality. On the same day, they ordered their return to Morocco and imposed a twenty-year entry ban on them. Their alert in the Schengen Information System was also intended to prevent their return to the countries concerned.
But the two men challenged all of these measures.
In a decision issued on June 3, 2026, the The Hague court ruled in their favor regarding their expulsion.
An old conviction is not enough
To impose such measures, the authorities must demonstrate that the two men pose a real, current and sufficiently serious threat to a fundamental interest of society.
However, according to the court, this demonstration was not sufficiently made. The authorities relied in particular on their terrorism conviction, but the judges considered that they had not sufficiently established that the men still represent a threat today justifying their removal and a twenty-year entry ban.
The court therefore annulled the decisions ordering their return to Morocco, the twenty-year entry bans, and the resulting alerts in the Schengen system.
The case brought another setback for the Dutch authorities. In separate proceedings, this time directly concerning the loss of their nationality, the courts also ruled in favor of the two men on June 3.
The second court decision annulled the decisions by which the authorities had rejected their appeals against the withdrawal of their Dutch nationality. The State Secretary must now reconsider their situation.
This does not mean that their Dutch nationality has been definitively restored. But the process initiated to deprive them of this nationality has also been called into question and must undergo a new examination.
A detail from the hearing also shows that the problem does not stem from a general impossibility of returning people convicted of terrorism to Morocco. The Dutch government told the court that a Moroccan national convicted of terrorism had recently been successfully expelled to Morocco.
In the case of the two men, it was indeed the legal justification for their removal that was lacking. The Netherlands may potentially issue new decisions, but this time they will have to demonstrate sufficiently precisely why the men would still represent a current threat.
On Bladi.net : article 116381
Born in the Netherlands, becoming Dutch during childhood and then deprived of that nationality, the two Moroccans therefore remain, for now, safe from forced return to Morocco and the twenty-year Schengen ban that was supposed to accompany it.