Top EU court upholds Hamas terror listing

luxembourg — The EU’s top court on Wednesday upheld the bloc’s decision to put Palestinian movement Hamas on its terrorism blacklist.

The European Court of Justice overturned a 2014 ruling by the bloc’s second highest court, saying it “should not have annulled Hamas’ retention on the European list of terrorist organisations”.

The lower court sparked outrage in Israel and Washington when it said Hamas should be dropped from the list because the EU had made the decision based on information from the media and internet.

But the Luxembourg-based ECJ said that in doing so, the General Court had “made an error in law” and it would now have to examine the case again.

The Hamas ruling came as a surprise since one of the ECJ’s senior lawyers had said in an opinion last September that Hamas should not have been included on the terror list because procedural mistakes invalidated the EU decision. —