WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND (AP) - Mike Tyson has been barred from New Zealand after a lawmaker rescinded the visa he had been issued to fulfill a speaking engagement later this month.
Associate immigration minister Kate Wilkinson said on Wednesday that she had overruled the decision of immigration officials a day earlier because a charitable organization sponsoring Tyson’s visit had withdrawn its support.
Wilkinson says the move to issue a visa to Tyson, who was convicted of rape in 1992 and spent three years in prison, had been “a finely balanced call,” made in part because of the support of the Life Education Trust.
Wilkinson says the Trust has now withdrawn its support, meaning Tyson would no longer be able to visit Auckland to perform his one-man show called “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth.”
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