"I have called on Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to relieve me of my functions," said Jensby, 63, in office since the centre-right government came to power in 2001.

"The government has obtained remarkable results and I don't want to burden the government and my family with this relentless campaign against me," he said in a statement.

Replacing Jensby as defence minister is Liberal member of parliament Soeren Gade.

Denmark was a strong backer of the US-led war on Iraq, and accused the former Baghdad regime of having illegal weapons of mass destruction.

Rasmussen told parliament before the start of the war on March 20, 2003 that he was convinced Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction, and his government said the their existence justified a military strike.

The left-wing opposition had been calling for Jensby to stand down since he revealed on television last week the confidential contents of a meeting of a parliamentary committee overseeing the country's secret services.

The committee is the Danish parliament's most secret and important, and is made up of five members of the largest political parties, the justice and defence ministers and the heads of the intelligence services.

The meeting last year was devoted to an analysis by defence ministry intelligence of Iraq's alleged weapons arsenal.

Jensby reported in detail statements made by opposition lawmakers at the meeting, with the aim of showing that the opposition, while publicly opposing Denmark's involvement in Iraq, in fact agreed with the government on the threat posed by Iraq's supposed weapons.

After Jensby revealed details of what was said at the meeting, charges were filed against him.

Initially he apologised for his actions, but some days later returned to the issue, claiming that he had based his remarks on information that came not from the committee's session but from a public meeting.

This about-face served only to increase the intensity of the attacks on Jensby and the opposition indicated it would put forward a motion of no confidence.

So far, over a year after Saddam Hussein's ouster, there has been no trace of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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