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07-18-2005, 05:09 PM
Germany sets free suspected al-Qaeda financier
By FT Reporters
Published: July 18 2005 22:01 | Last updated: July 18 2005 22:01
Germany on Monday freed a suspected al-Qaeda financier after the country's highest court ruled that the European legislation needed to extradite him was unconstitutional.
The ruling on the implementation of the European arrest warrant, one of the European Union's chief tools in the fight against terrorism, threatens to delay extraditions to and from Germany, the centre of many high-profile terror cases.
It also underscored the difficulties of conducting multinational terrorism investigations just as the focus of the hunt for the people behind the recent London bomb attacks shifted to Pakistan to see if the bombers had contacts with extremist groups there.
At least two of the four suspected suicide bombers visited Pakistan last year. One of them, Shehzad Tanweer, is suspected to have visited one or more madrassahs, or religious school.
But Pakistani intelligence officials said a preliminary assessment of his case suggested he did not gain any expertise on explosives at the schools he visited. In the UK, investigators said they were still uncertain about the exact composition of home-made explosives used in the four rush-hour blasts which killed 56. No detonators or timing devices have been found.
Britain's three main political parties on Monday agreed to co-operate to introduce new terror legislation in the autumn, sooner than planned. The new law will target people preparing to commit terrorist acts; those who indirectly incite, or “glorify”, terrorism, and those who provide or receive training for terrorists.
The government of Tony Blair on Monday rejected claims in a report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a respected think-tank, that there was “no doubt” the UK's involvement in the war in Iraq had imposed “particular difficulties” for British counter-terrorism efforts.
The ruling by the German constitutional court to free Mamoun Darkazanli, a German-Syrian dual national wanted by the Spanish authorities, could delay extraditions to and from Germany. But the European Commission insisted that the arrest warrant, which came into effect last year as part of the EU's response to the 2001 attacks on the US, would continue to function across the union's 24 other countries and urged Berlin to redress the problem quickly.
Michael Rosenthal, Mr Darkazanli's lawyer, told the Financial Times that while he welcomed the ruling it did not represent “a blow to the EU arrest warrant or to EU integration more generally. This ruling is about mistakes made by the German government.”
The court ruled that Germany had not put the arrest warrant into law in a way that was compatible with the constitution.
By Sarah Laitner in Brussels, Hugh Williamson in Berlin and Stephen Fidler, Cathy Newman and Frederick Studemann in London
By FT Reporters
Published: July 18 2005 22:01 | Last updated: July 18 2005 22:01
Germany on Monday freed a suspected al-Qaeda financier after the country's highest court ruled that the European legislation needed to extradite him was unconstitutional.
The ruling on the implementation of the European arrest warrant, one of the European Union's chief tools in the fight against terrorism, threatens to delay extraditions to and from Germany, the centre of many high-profile terror cases.
It also underscored the difficulties of conducting multinational terrorism investigations just as the focus of the hunt for the people behind the recent London bomb attacks shifted to Pakistan to see if the bombers had contacts with extremist groups there.
At least two of the four suspected suicide bombers visited Pakistan last year. One of them, Shehzad Tanweer, is suspected to have visited one or more madrassahs, or religious school.
But Pakistani intelligence officials said a preliminary assessment of his case suggested he did not gain any expertise on explosives at the schools he visited. In the UK, investigators said they were still uncertain about the exact composition of home-made explosives used in the four rush-hour blasts which killed 56. No detonators or timing devices have been found.
Britain's three main political parties on Monday agreed to co-operate to introduce new terror legislation in the autumn, sooner than planned. The new law will target people preparing to commit terrorist acts; those who indirectly incite, or “glorify”, terrorism, and those who provide or receive training for terrorists.
The government of Tony Blair on Monday rejected claims in a report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a respected think-tank, that there was “no doubt” the UK's involvement in the war in Iraq had imposed “particular difficulties” for British counter-terrorism efforts.
The ruling by the German constitutional court to free Mamoun Darkazanli, a German-Syrian dual national wanted by the Spanish authorities, could delay extraditions to and from Germany. But the European Commission insisted that the arrest warrant, which came into effect last year as part of the EU's response to the 2001 attacks on the US, would continue to function across the union's 24 other countries and urged Berlin to redress the problem quickly.
Michael Rosenthal, Mr Darkazanli's lawyer, told the Financial Times that while he welcomed the ruling it did not represent “a blow to the EU arrest warrant or to EU integration more generally. This ruling is about mistakes made by the German government.”
The court ruled that Germany had not put the arrest warrant into law in a way that was compatible with the constitution.
By Sarah Laitner in Brussels, Hugh Williamson in Berlin and Stephen Fidler, Cathy Newman and Frederick Studemann in London