The European Union’s second-highest court on Wednesday annulled the bloc’s decision to keep Hamas on a list of terrorist organisations, although the Palestinian Islamic group’s assets will remain frozen.
The General Court of the European Union said the original listing in 2001 was based not on sound legal judgements but on conclusions derived from the media and the Internet.
The court said it was nevertheless maintaining punitive measures such as freezing of assets and travel bans.
It stressed that the decision was based on technical grounds and did “not imply any substantive assessment of the question of the classification of Hamas as a terrorist group.”
The freeze on Hamas’s funds will remain in place for three months pending any appeal by the EU, the Luxembourg-based court said.
Hamas’s military wing was added to the European Union’s first-ever terrorism blacklist drawn up in December 2001 in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States.
The EU blacklisted the political wing of Hamas in 2003.
“The General Court finds that the contested measures are based not on acts examined and confirmed in decisions of competent authorities but on factual imputations derived from the press and the Internet,” the court said.
Instead, such an action had to be based on facts previously established by competent authorities, it said.
The lawyer for Hamas, Liliane Glock, told AFP she was “satisfied with the decision”.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
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