Adou Ouattara: Boy smuggled in suitcase given temporary residency in Spain
The boy's father has denied he is guilty of human rights abuse
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Your support makes all the difference.An 8-year-old boy, who was discovered in a suitcase in a North African airport as a woman tried to smuggle him to Spain, has been granted temporary residency by the Spanish Government.
Police discovered Adou Ouattara, from the Ivory Coast, curled up inside the small, wheeled suitcase, in the Spanish enclave of Cueta in early May.
A 19-year-old Moroccan woman who was carrying the suitcase, who is unrelated to him, has been arrested.
Adou Ouattara has been given a temporary residence permit (Image: AFP)
Read more: Boy found in suitcase by customs officials
The boy’s father, who lives with the child’s mother in Spain, has also been detained on charges of human rights abuse for attempting to have the boy smuggled into the country.
But the father’s lawyer, Francesco Luca Caronna, has said that the man was unaware of the plan, and thought his son was travelling to Spain by car with a visa he paid for abroad.
Mr Ouattara, who works in a laundrette, has been living legally on the Spanish Canary Island of Fuerteventura for seven years. His wife, from the Ivory Coast, joined him later.
The couple’s 11-year-old daughter was allowed to enter Spain recently, but Mr Ouattara decided to buy a visa for Adou after he was around €50 or €60 short of the €1,331 ($1,480) authorities need to care for the two children.
Mr Caronna said that he is confident the judge presiding over the case will accept the explanation and release him so the family can be reunited.
Adou is currently being cared for in a centre for children in Ceuta.
Additional reporting by AP
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