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Frenchwoman quits Norwegian refugee post
in permit row
22.5.2006
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OSLO, May 22,
2006 (AFP) , -- Frenchwoman Manuela Ramin-Osmundsen
has quit as head of Norway's immigration department
over a scandal in which she was accused of tacitly
allowing issue of illegal residence permits to Iraqi
Kurds, the government said Monday.
Ramin-Osmundsen, a lawyer and the first foreigner to
hold this post, is accused of having been aware of
the illegal granting of residence permits last year
to 182 Iraqi Kurds in violation of guidelines by the
then centre-right government.
Ramin-Osmundsen, from the French Antilles islands in
the Caribbean and married to a Norwegian, had been
in her new post only two months.
At the time the 182 permits were issued she was
deputy head of the department and claimed she had
not been immediately informed of what had happened.
But in a report published Monday a committee of
enquiry said it was highly probable she did in fact
know of circumstances which had overstepped the
bounds of legality, even if she had not taken an
active role in the decision-making.
"She has reached the conclusion that it would be
difficult for her to head the immigration
department, faced with the challenge of restoring
relations of confidence indispensable to good
political management of refugee and immigration
affairs," said Labour and Social Affairs Minister
Bjarne Haakon Hanssen.
AFP
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