Labour MPs have demanded ministers explain why an 18-year-old youth with an IQ of 48 was held in an immigration centre for five days with no contact with his family.

The youth, known as Ciazio, was arrested after the bus bringing him home from school drove into the wrong street, the Parool reported earlier this week. An illegal immigrant from Suriname, he was found to be without papers and handed over to the immigration police.

His family were not allowed to see or speak to him and on Tuesday he was told he would be deported next week. The youth was eventually allowed home after the intervention of his local mayor, the paper said.

Intimidation

Labour MPs say the boy’s detention was ‘intimidatory’ and that it is ‘unacceptable to detain a boy with such mental vulnerability’. They also want the justice minister to find out if the boy’s background was investigated.

Now the boy’s lawyer is appealling against the refusal of the authorities to give a residency permit to him and his twin brother, who is also mentally handicapped. The boys’ mother and two other siblings all have Dutch passports.

According to a psychologist from the youth’s school, he has the mental age of an eight-year-old. ‘He was completely hysterical when we finally managed to speak to him on Monday,’ Ciazio’s step-father told the Parool. ‘He had eaten nothing and worn the same clothes for five days.’