[JURIST] Germany's Federal Constitutional Court [official website] ruled Tuesday that authorities violated the freedom of the press [press release, in German] when they raided the offices of the monthly political magazine Cicero [official website]. In September 2005, investigators searched the offices of Cicero in an attempt to find the source of a leak of confidential papers from Germany's Federal Crime Office [official website] in connection to the financing of Islamic extremists. The court held in a 7-1 vote that the raid was an "unjustified intrusion on the press freedom of the plaintiff" and that there might be ways other than an intentional leak that journalists could learn about state secrets.

Last year, a Potsdam court threw out charges against two Cicero journalists put on trial as accessories to divulging secrets, citing lack of sufficient evidence. AP has more. Cicero had additional coverage, in German.