A European Union court on Thursday annulled a 2007 move to freeze the assets of an exiled Iranian opposition group in the latest legal setback for an EU blacklist of suspected terrorist groups. But the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) - which exposed Iran's covert nuclear programme in 2002 - was due to stay on the blacklist for now because the ruling did not affect a separate EU decision this year reaffirming the policy.
"The Court considers that the (EU) Council's statement of reasons is manifestly insufficient to provide legal justification for continuing to freeze the PMOI's funds," the European Court of First Instance said in a statement. While the EU's second-highest court specifically stated that the ruling did not challenge the EU's decision in July 2008 to keep the PMOI on a revised blacklist, PMOI allies insisted the EU now had no grounds to maintain the ban.
"This decision is sufficient for it to be removed unless the (EU) Council continues to defy the court's ruling," said Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the PMOI's political wing. "It is not for Europe to defy its own rule of law. It puts the final nail in the coffin of the unjust terror label of the PMOI," she said by telephone.
Rajavi accused the EU, which has led unsuccessful diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear programme, of seeking to "appease" Tehran by keeping the PMOI blacklisted.
The ruling is the latest legal setback for the inclusion of the PMOI on the blacklist, including a British decision in June to take the group off a similar national list of banned groups. Despite the British move, the 27-member EU decided a month later to keep the PMOI banned. A French source said France had come forward with new information about the group justifying its inclusion.