GERMANY: Germany's highest court has nullified the extradition of a German-Syrian man with suspected al-Qaeda links and has ruled unconstitutional German laws governing the European arrest warrant.
The constitutional court in Karlsruhe said yesterday that German laws adopted last August connected to the warrant violated the basic constitutional rights of Mamoun Darkazanli (47), and ordered his release.
The ruling does not affect the operation of the arrest warrant in the rest of the EU, but the court ruled that "the extradition of a German citizen isn't possible" until a new German law is drafted.
Justice minister Brigitte Zypries called it a "blow for the government in its efforts in the fight against terrorism".
A revised law could be rushed through in four to five weeks, but that may be delayed because of the anticipated autumn general election.
Mr Darkazanli, a Syrian-born man who took on German citizenship in 1990, was arrested in Hamburg last October on a Spanish arrest warrant.
He appeared before a Hamburg court a month later, described as "one of the key figures of the al-Qaeda terrorist network".
The court heard allegations that he has personal contacts with Osama Bin Laden, that he supported al-Qaeda operatives financially and logistically in Spain, Germany and the UK since 1997, and that he was involved in the Madrid train bombings.
The Hamburg court heard that he could be seen in the 1999 wedding video of two of the September 11th suicide pilots. Mr Darkanzanli says he only knew the men in passing.
The constitutional court ruling was seen by legal experts more as a slap on the wrist to the government for careless lawmaking than a show of lenience towards suspected terrorists.
Article 16 of Germany's post-war constitution protects Germans from foreign extraditions except to other EU states or international courts, but only in limited circumstances.
But the German arrest warrant law was deemed unsatisfactory because it makes no provision for an appeal, said the judges, throwing out the legislation and calling on the "deficiencies in the German law to be repaired as soon as possible". Mr Darkazanli was released from a Hamburg prison yesterday.