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Eighteen organizations demand Palestinian terrorist Ahlam Tamimi be extradited to U.S. to face charges for the 2001 Sbarro Pizzeria bombing that killed 15, including two Americans.
By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel
Eighteen major Jewish organizations on Monday called on the Trump Administration to put pressure on Jordan’s King Abdullah to extradite Ahlam Tamimi, the Jordanian fugitive terrorist behind the deadly 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem.
Tamimi was convicted of being the mastermind who succeeded in getting the suicide bomber to the restaurant, where he killed 15 people, including two American nationals – 15-year-old Malki Roth and 31-year-old teacher Judith Hayman Greenbaum. An additional victim, a young mother who was also an American national, has remained comatose since the bombing.
Although sentenced to 16 life terms, Tamimi was released as part of the 2011 prisoner release in exchange for hostage IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and moved to Jordan, where she hosts a talk show on a TV station affiliated with the Hamas terror group. Although Jordan and the U.S. signed an extradition treaty in 1995, Jordanian courts claim the treaty had never been ratified by Jordan’s parliament.
The Trump administration has offered a $5 million reward for her capture but apparently has not asked the Jordanian government to hand her over, JNS reported in 2018.
In a 2006 interview while in prison, Tamimi said, “I’m not sorry for what I did. I will get out of prison and I refuse to recognize Israel’s existence.”
In their statement, the Jewish organizations expressed “our collective outrage over the Kingdom of Jordan’s refusal to extradite the murderer of American citizens.”
The groups “call upon our government to hold Jordan accountable to its commitments under its extradition treaty with the United States and bring all pressure to bear including but not limited to recent government legislation significantly impacting U.S. financial aid to Jordan.”
The groups also noted that Tamimi boasted that two of the factors leading her to pick the pizzeria as a bombing target were the crowds that gathered there during lunch hour and that she “knew there was a Jewish religious school nearby…”
“I admit that I was a bit disappointed because I had hoped for a larger [death] toll,” the convicted terrorist said.
Arnold Roth, the father of Malki, said: “We have been working hard to move public opinion in the US to stand with us.”
“It’s an ongoing process. The organizations whose support we’re announcing today speak publicly and with one voice in this extraordinary call for justice for Malki and the other Sbarro victims. It’s time that Jordan’s disregard for its legal, diplomatic and moral obligations to hand Tamimi over to U.S. justice was brought to an end,” Roth said.
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