Hamas should be removed from terror list: EU court

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas should be removed from the European Union's terrorist list, an EU court ruled on Wednesday, saying the decision to include it was based on media reports not considered analysis.

In its ruling, however, the bloc's second highest tribunal said member states could keep Hamas's assets frozen for three months to give time for further review or for an appeal.

The EU's foreign policy arm said the bloc continued to view Hamas as a terrorist group. "This was a legal ruling of the court based on procedural grounds. We will look into this and decide on appropriate remedial action," spokeswoman Maja Kocijanic said.

The United States urged the European Union not to change its stance.

"We believe that the E.U. should maintain its terrorism sanctions on Hamas," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a regular news briefing.

Israel, which has clashed repeatedly with Europe in recent years over Palestinian statehood ambitions, demanded Hamas remain blacklisted and said the ruling showed "staggering hypocrisy" toward a Jewish state founded after the Holocaust.

"It seems that too many in Europe, on whose soil six million Jews were slaughtered, have learned nothing. But we in Israel, we've learned," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. He branded Hamas "a murderous terrorist organization".

Most Western countries say it is a terrorist organization, pointing to years of indiscriminate rocket strikes out of Gaza and waves of suicide attacks, primarily between 1993 and 2005.

In a similar ruling, an EU court said in October the 2006 decision to place Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers on the EU list was procedurally flawed. As with Hamas, it also said the group's assets should remain frozen pending further legal action and the European Union subsequently filed an appeal. (Reuters)