Hamas politburo member Fathi Hammad | Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images ECJ adviser: Hamas should be off EU terror list EU can’t rely on ‘facts and evidence’ found in media and on the internet, the non-binding opinion said.

Hamas and the Tamil Tigers should be removed from an EU list of terror organizations, an adviser to the bloc's top court said Thursday, arguing the Union had provided insufficient evidence to support the listing.

The opinion from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston is not binding on the court's judges who are yet to issue a final ruling in the ongoing legal battle over whether the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a Sri Lankan separatist group, should remain on the list of EU terrorist organizations.

There are 23 groups and individuals on the list that was drawn up after September 11 attacks to allow the EU to freeze financial assets and improve police cooperation, according to the BBC.

The EU's second-highest court found in separate judgments in 2014 that Hamas and the LTTE should be removed from the list because their inclusion was based on EU countries' own factual imputations, garnered from media reports and internet sites.

The Council of the EU, which represents all 28 member states, appealed to the ECJ, arguing the lower court had wrongly assessed information in the public domain and not given enough weight to a 2001 decision by the U.K. government to proscribe both groups as terrorist organizations.

In the case of Hamas, the Council also argued the lower court was wrong to reject a U.S. decision to list the group as a terrorist organization as sufficient grounds for the EU to do the same.

On Thursday, Sharpston, a legal adviser to the court, rejected those arguments, saying "the Council cannot rely on facts and evidence found in press articles and information from the internet," according to an official summary of her decision.

The advocate general also said the groups’ listing by countries outside the bloc was insufficient justification for inclusion if it could not be shown those countries’ sufficiently protected fundamental rights, at least equivalent to EU standards.

An EU spokesperson said "we have taken note of the Advocate General's opinion.... We now await the final decision of the Court of Justice, bearing in mind that the Advocate General's opinion is without prejudice to the final ruling."

The groups' assets are frozen, pending the outcome of the appeal.

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