FORMER DANISH MINISTER SENTENCED ON PROBATION
The Danish State Court has sentenced the former Minister of Justice, Erik Ninn-Hansen, to four months imprisonment. The sentence has been suspended. Ninn-Hansen was found guilty of unlawful obstruction of immigration procedures. Between 1987 and 1989 the former Minister of Justice, who was responsible for immigration, had stopped the entry of family members of 140 recognised Tamil refugees, who had been granted family reunion by the Danish immigration authorities, by simply shelving the decisions.
Ninn-Hansen resigned in January 1989, shortly after the scandal came to light, but the conservative government of Prime Minister Poul Schlüter only fell four years later, in January 1993, when Schlüter was accused of having withheld the truth from the parliament about the unlawful proceedings of his former Minister of Justice.
Source: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23.6.95.