Swedish immigration authorities said Wednesday they had halted at the last minute the deportation of 30 Iraqis pending a European Court of Human Rights decision on their cases.

"It has been decided to delay the deportations" pending a ruling from the European rights court, which is considering whether to examine the cases, Haakan Gestrin of the Swedish Migration Board told AFP.

The group of 30 had been scheduled to be sent back to Iraq early Wednesday.

The Council of Europe's Strasbourg court had asked Sweden to suspend deportations "until it has a clearer view of the situation in Iraq," migration board spokesman Johan Rahm added.

"We have just over 200 cases the European court has asked us to temporarily suspend. Nineteen of those 200 were supposed to leave on the plane this morning," he explained.

He said the court's stance was not yet known on the remaining 11 Iraqis who were scheduled to be on Wednesday's flight, and Sweden had therefore decided to temporarily delay their deportation as well pending a decision, he said.

On Tuesday, Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjoern Jagland said in a statement the court "clearly asked Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom not to proceed with the forced return of Iraqis in view of the recent deterioration of the security situation there."

Rahm however insisted the Swedish Migration Board had never received a request from the European Court of Human Rights to stop all deportations to Iraq.

"The communication from the European Council was surprising for us," he said.

"It's very important for us to follow the ruling of the courts and we always do... But the court has not asked us to stop all deportations to Iraq," he said.