Will the US pressure Jordan to extradite terrorist Ahlam al-Tamimi?

Ahlam al-Tamimi is the proud Hamas terrorist who was integral to the 2001 bombing of the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem, killing 15 including 7 children and a pregnant woman.

Tamimi was one of the 1,207 prisoners released in the deal to free Gilad Shalit and she has lived freely in Jordan since then, publicly proud about her role in murdering Jewish children.

Malki Roth, 15, was one of the two American victims of the Sbarro massacre, and since then her parents Arnold and Frimet have been working tirelessly to see justice done to her murderer.

In 2013, the US Justice Department brought charges against Tamimi under US laws, but the charges were not unsealed until 2017. 

“Al-Tamimi is an unrepentant terrorist who admitted to her role in a deadly terrorist bombing that injured and killed numerous innocent victims,” Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary McCord said at the time. “The charges unsealed today serve as a reminder that when terrorists target Americans anywhere in the world, we will never forget – and we will continue to seek to ensure that they are held accountable.”

Last year, for the first time, the US State Department annual Country Report on Terrorism mentioned al-Tamimi:

A U.S. criminal complaint was unsealed in March charging Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, a Jordanian national in her mid-30s, with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the United States resulting in death. The charge is related to her participation in an August 9, 2001, suicide bomb attack at a restaurant in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including two U.S. nationals. Four other U.S. nationals were among the approximately 122 others injured in the attack. Also unsealed was a warrant for Al-Tamimi’s arrest and an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint and arrest warrant. Jordan’s courts have ruled that their constitution forbids the extradition of Jordanian nationals.

The newly released Country Report on Terrorism 2018 includes a significant addition to the virtually identical text:

 In 2018, Jordan continued to cite a court ruling that its constitution forbids the extradition of Jordanian nationals. The United States regards the extradition treaty as valid.

Those nine words hint that the current administration, unlike previous ones, might actually pressure Jordan publicly to extradite Tamimi to the US.

The Jordanian ruling that Jordanian nationals cannot be extradited is contradicted by Jordan's own actions in extraditing a Jordanian national for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in 1995.

Here is the text of the extradition treaty between the US and Jordan.

Jordan's position that Tamimi cannot be extradited under their constitution is an extreme insult. Here is what the Jordanian constitution says:

Article 21
(i) Political refugees shall not be extradited on account of their political beliefs or for their defence of liberty.
(ii) Extradition of ordinary criminals shall be regulated by international agreements and laws. 

Meaning that Jordanian justice system does not view a murderer of children as a criminal or terrorist, but rather as an innocent person being persecuted for her political beliefs.

Far more information is available at the This Ongoing War website maintained by the parents of Malki Roth.

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