(Bloomberg) -- Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and her senior staff members have been asked to restore deleted text messages as part of the parliamentary probe into the government's decision to cull all of the country's mink last year.
Frederiksen and three of her key staffers have said they were unable to share text messages with the team investigating the decision to cull all of the country's 17 million mink over coronavirus-related worries -- an order which was illegal at the time it was issued. The messages have all been automatically deleted on their devices.
Michael Kistrup, a high court judge and head of the investigation team, has now asked the prime minister's office to restore the deleted material, he told local media earlier this week. Frederiksen and her staff are the only ones who have not been able to provide text messages, the chairman said.
During the first month of hearings, text messages have been key evidence to prove who knew what and when in the process leading up the announcement in November 2020.
Frederiksen, who is scheduled to testify on Dec. 9, told Danish broadcaster TV2 on Thursday she is using a function to automatically delete messages after 30 days, because she has been advised to do so over security concerns. She declined to comment on when that practice began, while her predecessor Lars Lokke Rasmussen wrote on Facebook that he hadn't used it.
Read more: Denmark's Premier Faces Probe Over Controversial Mink Cull
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