**A European court has ruled that the spouses of suspected terrorists can claim social security, though the funds of the suspects themselves are frozen.**The case was brought by the UK’s House of Lords when spouses appealed against a Treasury decision to restrict funds.
The European Court of Justice ruled on Thursday that any social aid was unlikely to fund terrorist activities.
It said paying benefits to suspects’ families “does not compromise” the practice of freezing suspects’ assets.
Treasury officials initially argued that benefits including income support, disability, living allowance, and child, housing and council tax benefits could be made indirectly available to terror suspects themselves.
It decided to limit benefits to £10 per family member, requiring recipients to file accounts to the Treasury each month and warning that any funds made available to terror suspects was a criminal offence.
‘Essential needs’
In its ruling on Thursday, the European Court of Justice said that “the interpretation used by the Treasury… is not based on any danger whatsoever that the funds in question may be diverted in order to support terrorist activities”.
The ruling conceded that “the funds in question are in fact used by the spouses concerned to meet the essential needs of the households to which the persons included in the list belong”.
It added that “it is hard to imagine how those funds could be turned into means that could be used to support terrorist activities, for the benefits are fixed at a level intended to meet only the strictly vital needs of the persons concerned”.This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
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