Germany's top court blocked the extradition of a suspected al Qaeda financier to Spain, ruling on Monday that a key instrument in the European Union's fight against terrorism breached the constitution. The Federal Constitutional Court ordered the release of Mamoun Darkazanli, a German-Syrian fighting his handover under an EU arrest warrant, a new instrument the court said Germany had not implemented correctly.
In doing so, the court upheld an article of the post-war constitution preventing the state from extraditing its citizens, with only limited exceptions.
The ruling could undermine the warrant, one of the bloc's most significant security initiatives since the September 11 attacks in 2001 and introduced last year to speed up the handover of suspects and boost co-operation in the fight against terrorism.
German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said the court's decision was a set-back for the battle against international terrorism.
The European Commission urged Berlin to address the problems and try again to implement the EU arrest warrant in full.
Zypries said a new law could be ready within four to six weeks, although an expected German general election in September could stall the warrant's re-launch for months.
Konrad Freiberg, the head of the German police union, urged rival politicians not to let the issue become an electoral battleground.
Suspects wanted in other EU nations are meanwhile free.
Darkazanli, a businessman with dual Syrian and German nationality, has been in custody in Hamburg since last October.
He has been accused by the United States of financing al Qaeda and was investigated by German authorities for links to the Hamburg cell that led the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. He has not been charged in Germany.
Darkazanli was one of 35 people charged by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon in September 2003 with belonging to al Qaeda.
Garzon's charge sheet says Darkazanli carried out "logistics support and financing activity" for the network, including the purchase of a cargo vessel that he and two others bought in December 1993 for its leader Osama bin Laden.