Jordanian High Court rejects U.S. extradition request for Ahlam Tamimi
The Savage of the Sbarro Pizzeria bombing is staying in Jordan, for now.
We reported last week on the unsealing of a criminal complaint against Ahlam al-Tamimi, the mastermind of the 2001 Sbarro Pizzeria suicide bombing in Jerusalem, U.S. to seek extradition of Ahlam Tamimi, the Savage of Sbarro Pizzeria bombing.
The Sbarro bombing killed fifteen people, including two American citizens. Ahlam’s only regret, expressed multiple times in interviews (see prior posts) is that she did not kill more people.
As we have pointed out in prior posts, Ahlam is a ghoul who took pleasure in killing children, and became joyful when a reporter informed her that more children had been killed than she originally thought.
She was released in October 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.
[Ahlam al-Tamimi arriving at Amman airport after being freed in the October 2011 Shalit deal][Image via This Ongoing War]
“We are fully confident that the court of cassation will issue a ruling endorsing the verdicts made by the first instance and appeal courts that rejected the [US] extradition request,” the family stated in a press release on Thursday.
“The case is still in Jordan’s court of cessation and a definitive decision is yet to be made,” the family said.
“The Jordanian monarch, government, and judiciary will remain the guardians of their nationals and will not allow anyone to harm them or undermine their human value,” the family said with confidence.
The Jordanian Court of Cassation is Jordan’s highest court, according to an official website.
The Petra News Service in Jordan reports that the Cassation Court has upheld the lower court decision rejecting the extradition request, Cassation Court rejects extraditing Tamimi to US authorities
Amman, March 20 (Petra)–The Court of Cassation approved a decision taken by the Amman Court of Appeal not to extradite Jordanian citizen Ahlam Tamimi, to the US authorities.
A judicial source told Jordan News Agency, Petra that Kingdom and the United States singed an extradition treaty on March 28, 1995, but was not approved by the Jordanian parliament.
The source said that a request sent by a foreign country to concerned authorities in Jordan to extradite criminals, are not usually accepted as long as the extradition treaty is not effective.
Al Tamimi was accused of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against a U.S national.
The family of Malki Roth, who was killed in the bombing, made this comment on their website:
We think there’s much here that needs to be verified, checked and documented and that, just because a legal source is said to have made a decision in Jordan, it doesn’t necessarily follow that this amounts to a decision similar to a decision by a superior court in another country. A lack of quality, inquisitive reporting makes real answers hard to find.
In any event, as people who are deeply interested in the outcome of both the legal process and the extradition process, we will keep looking into ways to somehow encourage an outcome more consistent with the interests of justice.
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Comments
I would have been so surprised had they extradited her I might have had a heart attack.
Surah 3:28
“Let not believers take disbelievers as allies rather than believers. And whoever [of you] does that has nothing with Allah , except when taking precaution against them in prudence. And Allah warns you of Himself, and to Allah is the [final] destination.”
A Muslim, or a Muslim government, can’t side with the infidel against a fellow Muslim. Any Muslim who would do this “has nothing with Allah;” in other words, is an apostate. This is what Nidal Hassan briefed his fellow Army psychiatrists about before killing 13 American soldiers on Fort Hood. His immortal soul was at stake.
By the way, the phrase “…except when taking precaution against them in prudence” includes a form of the word taqiya. One of the four divinely authorized types of lying in Islam. If an individual Muslim, group of Muslims, or even a Muslim state, feels it’s in danger from a stronger infidel force it’s allowed to pretend to be friends, allies, on the same side, etc., to safeguard oneself/itself. Allah won’t mind; in fact, it was Allah’s idea. As one of Muhammad’s companions, Abu ad-Darda, is recorded in the ahadith collection of Sahih al Buhhari, “We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.” Al-Bukhari said that another of Muhammad’s companions, Al-Hasan, said, “The Taqiya is allowed until the Day of Resurrection.”
I thought I’d throw in the last quote because some Muslims will try to tell you that only Shia practice that. And it’s true, the Shia practiced it a lot more as they were generally heavily outnumbered and had to pretend they were Sunnis. And some Sunnis really believe that. But other Sunnis will tell you that the early Sunnis were allowed to practice taqiya, but no more. Any Sunni who tries to tell you that is practicing taqiya. Taqiya is allowed for all Muslims until the end of time.
This pious religious principle, by the way, is why Pakistan took money from us to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda, then turned around and funneled the money to AQ and the Taliban. George Bush famously said after 9/11/2001 that either you were with us or you were against us. That put Pakistan between a rock and a hard place. They couldn’t afford to look like George Bush’s prison girlfriend to the whole Islamic world. But they also couldn’t afford to tell W whose side they were really on. Fortunately Islam provides a way out. Lie. Pretend to be on our side, then help their fellow Muslims.
Pakistan isn’t our ally, and can easily be replaced by India. As soon as we’re out of Afghanistan we need to make the switch.
Do we give Jordan any foreign aid? If so that is a good place to start. I am sick of our government taking money from me, by threat of force or imprisonment, and giving to people who hate me.
My first thoughts as well.
In other news: WATER, Wet!
They’re not going to hand her over unless it comes with a REALLY big carrot or a REALLY, REALLY big stick. She’s too well known and too “popular” with the public.
Now, this does present President Trump with an opportunity. He can:
1.) Punish Jordan by cutting off military or financial aid; or
2.) Punish Jordan by giving them a designation of “state sponsor of terrorism”;
3.) Offer Jordan a big public carrot for handing her off
4.) Offer Jordan a small carrot for allowing our military operators into Jordan near her residence and taking her.
As bad as this protection of a monster is, Jordan is more of friend to the US and Israel than any other Arab country. I personally like something akin toChuck Skinner’s solution #4.
Assassination is the obvious cure for Islamic cancer.
The US is probably going to have to treat this one like Roman Polanski—make some noise now and again, but do nothing … legal or otherwise.
Cutting off aid to Jordan without making it more vulnerable to the tumor in the region—Iran—would be very tricky, maybe impossible. Any gift to Iran would be a high price to pay for a single murderer.
Extra-legal assassinations are great fun and all, but again, the price is high, at least if one supports the concept of international law and order. And legally, the Jordanians are right—if they have no extradition treaty with the US, they have no obligation to hand anyone over for any reason.
Maybe the best thing the US can make of it is to hit Netanyahu over the head with a clue-by-four for letting her go in 2011. I don’t want to call Ben an idiot, because he definitely is not, but … he’s an idiot.
And working on an extradition treaty would be a good idea.
He’s not an idiot, he just has no spine at all. He knows what he ought to do, he learned it well in his parents’ home, but when push comes to shove he turns to jelly and abandons all principle. He’s always been like that. So when the Shalit family was going around the country raising hundreds of thousands of signatures demanding that he pay whatever ransom Hamas demanded for their little darling, not giving a d**n how many others would die for their son, he caved. It’s astonishing how many USans think he’s a hero, when in fact he makes Lindsay Graham look good.
This woman is a monster. No arguments there. However: She was tried, convicted, and imprisoned in the country in which her monstrous crime was committed, and then she was released by that country. I have long been uneasy with US laws which extend our reach globally. If I am murdered in Italy, Turkey, or anywhere else outside the US, surely the crime will be investigated and prosecuted under the laws of the country in question. Bringing it back to a US court doesn’t make much sense to me, as emotionally satisfying as it might be.
I agree, leave her smoking corpse where it falls unless Marine Raiders are involved. They may want pictures. Scrapbooks are important.
I’m afraid this is naive of you. When I was in the Navy I was on a regional commanders staff. When a Sailor or Marine committed a crime “on the economy” or was a victim of one, it was our job to take point on the matter. It was a small enough of a staff that I was very familiar with the details of all the major cases.
The most flagrant abuse by local authorities that I witnessed was a time when very early one morning four Marine Gunnery Sergeants carpooling to work were making a right turn across traffic (one of those counties where the steering wheel is on the wrong side) and were hit broadside by a car going over three times the posted limit. The were making a perfectly legal turn, but the kid behind the wheel was blind drunk and ran the red light. All four Marines were killed.
He was never even charged. Had he killed four locals, or even one, while driving drunk he probably never would have gotten out of jail. But the police and local prosecutor didn’t want to ruin his life just for killing four Americans.
And this was in Japan. I was on the staff of Commander, Naval Forces Japan.
Oh, and they displayed one more attitude I was intimately familiar with. If we Americans weren’t in their country There would have been no accident as there would have been nothing there for him to hit. Normally this attitude displayed itself when the Japanese were trying to pin the blame for every accident on the American. Such as the time one of my Petty Officers was driving at the speed limit after turning onto what must have been the longest,straightest road in Japan. She had gone well over a kilometer after turning onto the road when a kid on a rice rocket rear-ended her at well over 100mph, killing himself. Since, if she hadn’t been in Japan, he would still have been alive the local prosecutor accused her of cutting him off. We got her out from under that farce, but I don’t recall the other details as our legal dept. handled it. But it was touch and go for a while, and other wise she might still be in a Japanese prison.
I think we should amend our treaties with Israel. When terrorists kill Americans or even dual nationals, after they’re sentenced in Israel we’ll extradite them here and prosecute them for that murder separately. Then incarcerate them here. That way, unlike this she-dog they won’t be released in a prisoner swap. Tamimi should still be in prison.
I wouldn’t argue that our military personnel stationed overseas need some protection and advocacy from the vagaries of local laws. That’s not the case here, though. Civilians were brutally murdered, the murderers identified, prosecuted, and imprisoned, and later released for reasons unrelated to their original crimes. Is every murder or other serious crime committed against Americans traveling abroad to be prosecuted here?
I’m afraid you missed my point. We did have some protection from the vagaries of local law because of our status under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). But you as a civilian in japan on business or as a tourist would not. And I think you missed these lines.
“…But the police and local prosecutor didn’t want to ruin his life just for killing four Americans.
…Oh, and they displayed one more attitude I was intimately familiar with. If we Americans weren’t in their country There would have been no accident as there would have been nothing there for him to hit.”
These attitudes applied to Americans in general. If you were in Japan and were killed by a young Japanese driver with an otherwise unblemished criminal record and his whole life ahead of him, the instinct of the police and prosecutors would be to find a way to blame you for causing the accident. And this is in a prosperous first world country with a legal establishment that is at least as free of corruption as other first world countries. The situation is worse in many countries that aren’t exactly first world and are not free from corruption. The wealthy or well-connected will not see the inside of a court room let alone prison.
We have FBI agents at all our embassies. If they can assist with or at least observe the investigation, the threat that we can and will extradite your killer and prosecute him here is a powerful inducement for the Japanese or anybody else to get past their initial, knee-jerk reaction and prosecute him there.
As far as Tamimi is concerned, justice was not done as she was sentenced to 16 life terms but served less than ten years. You are leaving out crucial facts when you say “Civilians were brutally murdered, the murderers identified, prosecuted, and imprisoned, and later released for reasons unrelated to their original crimes.” That’s an overgeneralization to say the least. We can be much more specific; the Palestinians took a hostage to coerce Tamimi’s along with hundreds of other murderers’ release and it worked.
I would prefer not to see that. I’m sure the Israelis would prefer not to see that as well. Which is why, in retrospect, if we can arrive at some sort of arrangement with Israel to incarcerate any terrorist who kills an American citizen or dual-national here instead of there that would be a lot better then the position we’re in now.
Okinawa wasn’t a friendly place in 67, but it was just a stopover until there was a C130 load to the SLF.
Funny you should say that. That’s where those four Gunnies were killed, and the local government refused to prosecute their killer.
I have to say Okinawa, and Japan in general, was a lot friendlier than that story might make it appear. It was just that when there was traffic accident that resulted in loss of life, the knee-jerk reaction of the locals was to find some way to blame the Americans. For instance, a Chief Petty Officer in Sasebo was driving onto base when a teenager on a motor scooter riding on the sidewalk hit him broadside. It was totally illegal for the kid to ride his scooter on the sidewalk, but he died and the police charged the Chief with, I don’t remember what exactly as the Chief was totally within the law. But they blamed the Chief for the kid’s death.
Eventually the Chief agreed to pay compensation money to the family and the whole criminal case went away. Then we let the Chief get the hell out of Japan because he was understandably done with place.
And this is why we need the people that “no one wants to talk about at parties”. 2 operators in country, one shot, bomb, or hell poisoned taco I don’t care this is taken care of. Then we still cut funding to Jordan and designate them a “terrorist country”.