The General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg accepted the petition by Hamas in which it sought to have itself removed from the EU’s list of terrorist organizations.
Still, the court postponed implementing the ruling for three months to allow for the EU commission or one of the EU’s 28 member states to petition the decision.
The hearing in the European court was technical and procedural, and did not stem from a change in the EU’s position regarding Hamas.
A senior Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, tweeted that the court decision is “a legal victory for Palestinian rights.” According to the Twitter post, the decision rights an injustice done to the Hamas movement, “which is a national liberation movement.”
The Palestinian terrorist group asserted in its petition that the decision to put it on the EU terror list was carried out without giving it an opportunity for a hearing and without sufficient evidence being presented. The European court accepted the petition based on the precedent of a similar case of the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka.
The court ruled in its decision that most of the evidence used to put Hamas on the list of terrorist organizations were from open sources – mainly press publications. The court made it clear that the ruling does not say anything substantial about the status of Hamas or the character of the organization’s operations.
Likewise, the three-month postponement also means that Hamas assets within the EU will remain frozen as well as sanctions against its members. During this period EU institutions or member states will be able to appeal the ruling or make a new decision within the council of EU foreign ministers, which would define Hamas as a terror organization based on stronger evidence.
The EU ambassador in Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, will meet Wednesday afternoon with the director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, to clarify that the EU’s policy regarding Hamas has not changed, and that the intent is to formulate a new decision to classify Hamas as a terror organization.
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