A court in Estonia has found a former Soviet secret police official guilty of ordering the deportations of more than twenty families.

The man -- Johannes Klaassepp -- was given an eight-year suspended prison sentence for issuing deportation orders as an official of the NKVD secret service -- a precursor of the KGB.

Correspondents say Mr Klaassepp, who is seventy-eight, is the first person in Estonia to be convicted of crimes against humanity committed in the Stalinist era.