(CN) - Annulling, in name only, the inclusion of Hamas on a terrorist-sanction list Wednesday, the EU General Court cited a need to consider decisions of law, rather than press stories.
It was in December 2001, after the Twin Towers fell in New York, that the Council of the European Union put Hamas on the European list of terrorist organizations.
The EU General Court annulled those measures Wednesday but stressed that "the effects of the annulled measures are maintained temporarily in order to ensure the effectiveness of any possible future freezing of funds."
Such relief is necessary because, when the council put Hamas on the list, it relied, "not on acts examined and confirmed in decisions of competent authorities but on factual imputations derived from the press and the internet," according to a statement from the court (emphasis in original).
There is no English translation available of the court's French opinion.
"The effects of the measures are maintained for a period of three months, or, if an appeal is brought before the Court of Justice, until this appeal is closed," according to the court's statement.
"The court stresses that those annulments, on fundamental procedural grounds, do not imply any substantive assessment of the question of the classification of Hamas as a terrorist group," that statement continues.
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