KARLSRUHE, Germany, 19 July 2005 — A suspected top Al-Qaeda operative walked free from jail in Germany yesterday after the country’s highest court blocked his extradition to Spain on a new EU arrest warrant.

The federal constitutional court ruled that handing over Syrian-German businessman Mamoun Darkazanli to Spain under the EU policy would violate Germany’s basic law.

Darkazanli, sporting a short beard and wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, was released from custody in Hamburg a few hours later.

Spain accuses Darkazanli, 46, of being Osama Bin Laden’s “permanent interlocutor and assistant” in Europe and having provided the Al-Qaeda terror network with logistical and financial support between 1997 and 2002.

German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries condemned the Karlsruhe-based court’s decision as “another setback for the German government in the fight against international terrorism”.

The European Union’s executive arm, the European Commission, voiced regret that Germany had failed to implement the arrest warrant and called for it to bring its national legislation into line with EU policy.

Darkazanli was pictured on a 1999 wedding video alongside Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, two of the suicide pilots who were involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

German authorities investigated Darkazanli for several months after the attacks but never charged him.

He was eventually arrested in Germany in October 2004, but his lawyers argued that Germans may be expelled and tried abroad only when the crimes of which they are accused are not subject to prosecution at home.

Germany introduced a law against aiding and abetting a foreign terrorist organization only in August 2002, although supporting a domestic terror group has been illegal since 1976.

The Karlsruhe-based federal court found that the EU arrest warrant offered insufficient legal protection for German citizens and must now be implemented with a new German law that allows all extradition orders to be reviewed by German judges.

The ruling will mean that all German citizens being held for extradition within the EU must be released until the new legislation is passed.

Since the EU arrest warrant was passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and implemented in August 2004, at least 19 Germans have been extradited to other EU member states for various offenses including drug dealing, child abuse and even Nazi war crimes.

Investigators suspect Darkazanli befriended Al-Shehhi, Jarrah and the leader of the Sept. 11 attackers, Mohammed Atta, in Hamburg, the port city which became the rear base for the Sept. 11 attackers.

Darkazanli denies any terrorist activity, and said he knew the three hijackers “by sight”.

He could have faced up to 12 years in prison in Spain if convicted.

The government’s anger at the decision to free Darkazanli reflects tensions between the authorities and the justice system over the prosecution of terror suspects in Germany.

A Moroccan man, Mounir El Motassadeq, who is accused of involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is currently nearing the end of his retrial in Hamburg.

Motassadeq was sentenced in February 2003 to the maximum 15 years in prison on charges of membership of a terrorist organization and more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder for his alleged role in Atta’s “Hamburg cell”.

But a federal tribunal overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial. A verdict is expected August 19.

And another Moroccan national, Abdelghani Mzoudi, who was tried on the same charges as Motassadeq, was acquitted last October for lack of evidence.