British legal team submits request to remove Hamas from terrorist list

SANAA, April 24 (YPA) – A team of lawyers in Britain submitted a legal request to remove Hamas from the country’s list of banned terrorist organizations, considering the decision to designate it in 2021 to be politically motivated.

British lawyer Daniel Gruters, one of the applicants, said that “The decision taken by former Home Secretary Priti Patel to expand the scope of the ban to include Hamas’s political wing was not based on legal criteria but rather on purely political motives.”

Gruters, a lawyer at One Pump Court Chambers, indicated that three lawyers were authorized by Hamas to submit this request to the British Home Office, with the aim of revoking the movement’s designation on the list of banned terrorist organizations.

This designation was expanded in 2021 to include Hamas political wing after it was previously limited to its military wing.

The lawyers also declared that they had not received any funding or fees from Hamas or any party associated with it, where that British law criminalizes receiving funds from entities classified as terrorist.

Gruters stressed that their goal in this legal process is to pressure current Interior Minister, Yvette Cooper, to review the decision, noting that the request is based on the fact that designating Hamas as a terrorist organization was the result of a political position on the movement’s policies and goals, and not on objective grounds.