Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6480503.stm

The woman, a German citizen of Moroccan descent, had asked for an immediate divorce, saying her husband beat her.

But the female judge ruled that, under the law of the Koran, the woman had not been subject to unacceptable behaviour, the court in Frankfurt said.

The judge had now been removed from the divorce proceedings, it said.

She had argued that the couple's Moroccan cultural background meant it was "not unusual" for the husband to physically punish his wife.

The woman's domestic abuse therefore did not make her case one of exceptional hardship, she claimed.