Former Danish immigration minister Inger Stojberg has been handed a 60-day jail sentence for illegally ordering the separation of underage {couples} who sought asylum within the northern European nation.
On Monday, an impeachment courtroom convicted the ex-immigration minister and sentenced her to 60 days’ unconditional imprisonment over a 2016 order which noticed underage migrant {couples} separated.
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Identified for her hardline stance on migration, Stojberg had ordered that authorities separate migrant {couples} upon arrival in Denmark. In complete, 23 {couples} have been separated, in a transfer which was later deemed illegal by parliament’s ombudsman. The ombudsman decreed that Stojberg’s order did not acknowledge that {couples} have the fitting to particular person assessments.
The precise-wing politician, a Liberal Get together minister from 2015 to 2019, was accused of knowingly breaking the legislation. She had informed the press that she anticipated the case to be thrown out and denied giving the order. The ex-minister claimed the transfer was aimed toward defending underaged women and stamping out little one marriages.
Prosecutors Jon Lauritzen and Anne Birgitte Gammeljord informed reporters exterior the courtroom that they have been happy with the judgement, claiming that it’s “an historic case.”
The prosecution had sought a four-month conditional jail time period in what was the primary impeachment trial in practically three many years. 25 of 26 judges agreed to convict the previous minister.
The case first got here to mild in 2016 when a Syrian couple complained to the ombudsman that that they had been put in separate asylum amenities on arrival in Denmark. A fee launched into the so-called “little one bride case” in 2020 discovered the transfer to separate was “clearly unlawful.”