A FATHER whose eight-year-old son was smuggled into Spain in a suitcase has escaped with a €92 fine, but the woman who carried the little boy past the border could face up to six years in jail.
Ali Outtara and his wife Lucie live in Fuerteventura with their young daughter, but Spanish immigration authorities would not allow them to bring Abou into the country unless they could prove they had a minimum fixed legal income of at least €1,400 a month.
M. Outtara earned €1,360 from his long-term job in a laundrette and, not wanting to leave his little boy behind in the family's troubled native country, Côte d'Ivoire, agreed to pay a professional people-smuggler €5,000 to get his son into the Spanish-owned city-province of Ceuta on the northern Moroccan coast.
He maintains he had no idea Fatima, 19, planned to zip Abou into a suitcase, and he lost sight of him somewhere near the Morocco-Ceuta border.
The child was severely dehydrated, disorientated and struggling to breathe when he was released by customs officers after he showed up on the X-ray at the security gates.
He was kept in a children's home in Ceuta for several weeks while his identity was confirmed, but staff say the emotional reunion between Abou and Lucie left them in no doubt she was his mother.
Ali spent a month in custody, which has been offset against the €224 fine he was facing, reducing it to €92.
The incident will not affect Ali's application for Spanish citizenship, and Abou, now 11, has been allowed to remain in Fuerteventura with his family.
Ali was originally facing three years in jail.
Fatima El-Y., now 22, spent a year in custody and, following her release pending trial, has gone on the run.
If she is ever caught, she may be sentenced to six years in prison.
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