US media is reporting that the highest court of the EU has ruled that EU sanctions on Saudi businessman Yassin Kadi were unjustified and that governments had failed to provide enough evidence that he was involved in terrorist activities. According to a Reuters report:
Yassin Kadi
July 18, 2013 BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe’s highest court ruled on Thursday that EU sanctions on Saudi businessman Yassin Kadi were unjustified and that governments had failed to provide enough evidence that he was involved in terrorist activities.
Kadi was put on a European Union blacklist after being included on a U.N. list of people suspected of supporting Osama bin Laden directly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He contested the EU decision that year.
The United Nations annulled its restrictions on Kadi in 2012, but his long-standing case is closely watched by critics who have challenged the fairness of international sanctions and their targets’ ability to defend themselves.
The Luxembourg-based EU Court of Justice dismissed appeals by the council of EU governments, Britain and the executive European Commission against earlier judgments to repeal sanctions.
‘The European Union may not impose restrictive measures on Mr. Kadi,’ the court said in a statement.
The judgment echoes a handful of recent decisions by Europe’s second-highest court, the General Court, to dismiss EU sanctions against some Iranian companies, imposed as part of Western efforts to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program.
Here as well, the court has argued that EU governments have failed to produce sufficient proof of the targeted companies links to Iran’s atom work.
On October 12, 2001, Mr. Kadi was added to the list of designated terrorists by the U.S.Treasury. As of that date, the FBI had reported that Mr. Kadi had been the owner of a large block of the shares of Ptech, a Texas software company whose employees had further ties to terror organizations. Ptech was also linked to the SAAR Foundation, a network of Islamic organizations located in Northern Virginia that was raided by the Federal government in March 2002 in connection with the financing of terrorism. The leadership of the SAAR foundation, in turn, was largely the same as that of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), an important part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. One of the faculty at Dar El-Hekma has been Huda Totonji, likely the daughter of Ahmed Totonji, a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood leader and one of the founders of IIIT and the SAAR Foundation.
In February 2010, we reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had addressed students at the Dar El-Hekma women’s college in Saudi Arabia, known to have been co-founded and patronized by Yassin Kadi.
