The Supreme Court of South Australia has blocked moves by authorities to return a mentally disturbed Afghan asylum seeker to the remote Woomera detention centre.
The court was told that Qader Fedayee (18) is suffering severe post-traumatic stress after fleeing from Afghanistan when his parents were murdered by the Taliban.
He has spent the past month in an Adelaide psychiatric hospital where he will be permitted to remain after the court issued an order preventing the Department of Immigration from sending him to any detention centre, at least until April 16th.
It was claimed the youth curled up in a foetal position, wailing, when told he might be sent back to the Woomera detention centre, and that a return to detention would seriously risk his health and safety.
Outside the court, the state public advocate John Harley said he had been extremely frustrated at having to take the matter to court. "I really have had little or no cooperation with the Department of Immigration at all," Mr Harley said.
"This young man came out here on his own from Afghanistan, he saw his mother and father murdered. It's presumed his brothers and sisters have been murdered as well.
"His post-traumatic stress disorder is so severe that he goes into what's called a disassociated state where in fact he has got no knowledge or awareness of what's going on around him.
"When he found out that it was likely that he was to return to Woomera he entered into his dissociated state and he was on the ground in a foetal position wailing."
Fedayee's case was listed to reappear in the Supreme Court later in the month.
AFP