MADRID » A Spanish court has ordered the detention of a man from the Ivory Coast who allegedly attempted to smuggle his 8-year-old son into Europe in a suitcase.

A police statement said guards stopped a 19-year-old Moroccan woman who looked nervous as she waited in line Thursday at the land border crossing in Ceuta, a Spanish city enclave in North Africa.

When the guards put her suitcase through a scanner, they detected the boy curled up inside.

Border officers detained the woman and, later, the child’s father at the same border crossing. The woman is married to the father, and both had residence rights in Spain. The court said the boy did not.

A Ceuta magistrate on Friday ordered the father held on charges of human rights abuse.