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Sweden: Iraqi embassy issued 26,000
passports based on false documentation
1.2.2007 |
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February 1, 2007
The Iraqi embassy in Stockholm has admitted issuing
26,000 passports based on false documentation to
asylum seekers in Sweden and Norway. Migration
minister Tobias Billström is set to meet his
Norwegian counterpart in Oslo on Wednesday to
discuss the matter.
The country's foreign ministry has invited Iraq's
ambassador to explain the situation.
A Swedish migration official said that their faith
in the embassy-issued documents was "nearly zero".
Sweden is the most popular destination in Europe for
Iraqis, partly due to its relatively relaxed
immigration laws.
The number of Iraqis seeking asylum arriving in
Sweden in 2006 tripled from a year earlier, rising
to nearly 9,000 people. |
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Trading identities
Immigration officials said that once in the country,
many Iraqis applied for official documents issued by
the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm using false identity
documents.
"We have seen that [the embassy] regularly issues
passports based on documents that we have rejected
or deemed to be false," Bengt Hellstrom, of the
Swedish migration board, told the Associated Press
news agency.
The embassy provides identity documents for both
Sweden and neighbouring Norway.
Iraq's ambassador to Sweden is reported to have
recently told a Norwegian newspaper that the risk of
passports being issued on fake identities was quite
high.
"We have to go by the documentation that is
presented without being able to check its
authenticity in Iraq," the ambassador said.
A false passport can be used as the basis for an
asylum application and may lead to citizenship being
granted, officials say.
It is believed that some fake passports are sold on
to citizens of other Middle Eastern countries who
believe it is easier to obtain asylum with an Iraqi
nationality.
Iraq's ambassador to Sweden, Ahmad Bamerni, was
called to the Swedish Foreign Ministry yesterday,
January 31, amid reports the Iraqi Embassy in
Stockholm issued thousands of passports on false
grounds.
But ministry spokesman Andre Mkandawire reported the
ambassador said the claims are false.
Sweden's free daily "Metro" yesterday reported that
the Iraqi Embassy had issued some 26,000 passports
over the past two years without carrying out proper
identity checks.
The paper quoted Swedish Migration Board officials
as saying they had information that people from
Syria, Iran, Turkey, and Lebanon applied for Iraqi
passports at the embassy in order to seek asylum.
The Swedish Justice Ministry is now looking into the
matter.
BBC | AP | AFP
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