Iraq denies issuing passports without proper checks

Jan 31, 2007, 17:10 GMT

Stockholm - Iraqi diplomats rejected Wednesday media reports that the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm has issued thousands of passports without proper identity checks, Swedish officials said.

Niklas Kebbon, head of the department for migration and asylum policy at the Justice Ministry, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that he and officials from the Foreign Ministry met with Iraqi Ambassador Ahmad Bamarni to discuss media reports that some 26,000 Iraqi passports were issued to the wrong people in Scandinavia.

The report in free newspaper Metro was based on a recent Norwegian newspaper report of a police raid in the Norwegian capital Oslo where false Iraqi passports were discovered, suggesting wide-scale abuse of the passports.

Bamarni later held a news conference at the embassy where he reiterated that checks were in place.

In a related matter, the Swedish Migration Board that handles asylum issues said it since late last year has had some concerns about a specific kind of passport issued at Iraqi embassies that was 'easy to manipulate,' spokeswoman Marie Andersson told dpa.

Checking the authenticity of passports is a matter for police along with the Migration Board.

Some European Union countries have decided not to accept these passports, and the Swedish Migration Board was to decide if it would accept the passport in the coming weeks, Andersson said.

In addition to passports, there was other means of establishing a person's identity including interviews, she said.

Due to the uncertain situation in Iraq, asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected are not sent back to Iraq.

The Migration Board has in recent weeks reported a rise in the number of Iraqi nationals seeking asylum, and estimated some 3,000 people had applied for asylum last December.