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Germany sets free suspected al-Qaeda financier
 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.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 âa blow to the EU arrest warrant or to EU integration more generally. This ruling is about mistakes made by the German government.â The court ruled that Germany had not put the arrest warrant into law in a way that was compatible with the constitution. Posted by: Fred 2005-07-19 |
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