EU court orders Hamas removed from terror blacklist

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.

European ‘hypocrisy’

The lawyer for Islamic Palestinian group, Liliane Glock, told AFP she was "satisfied with the decision", which was also hailed by Hamas itself, which calls for the destruction of Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, urged the EU to reverse its decision, calling Hamas “a murderous terrorist organization”.

Netanyahu said the court’s move was an example of European hypocrisy and that many on the continent had failed to learn the lessons of the Holocaust.

"It seems that too many in Europe, on whose soil six million Jews were slaughtered, have learned nothing," Netanyahu’s office quoted him as saying, referring to the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II.

"But we in Israel, we've learned. We'll continue to defend our people and our state against the forces of terror and tyranny and hypocrisy," he said.

Following the ruling, EU Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said that despite the court ruling, the EU “continues to consider Hamas a terrorist organization”.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)