Report: Jordan unlikely to extradite Ahlam Tamimi, the Savage of Sbarro pizzeria bombing
Tamimi clan expresses confidence Jordan “will remain the guardians of their nationals”
We reported a few days ago 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. She smiled with joy during one interview when she learned that she killed 8 children, not the 3 she previously thought.
After the bombing, Ahlam presented a news story on the bombing in her role as an announcer on Palestinian television, without a hint that she had masterminded it:
[Ahlam Tamimi announcing Sbarro Pizzeria bombing 2001, via Hot House film]
Ahlam was released in 2011 as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal. Since then she has lived in Jordan where she is a TV announcer.
Ahlam continues to brag about the bombing through her Twitter account (@dreamsnnn), as this MEMRI report shows:
Ahlam Aref Al-Tamimi, facilitator of the deadly August 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem, who on March 14, 2017 was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list and is being charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the U.S. resulting in death, has been on Twitter (@dreamsnnn) since October 2013 …
Her tweets have included videos and photos of the scene at the 2001 Jerusalem bombing that she facilitated, including one marking the 14th anniversary of the attack and praising the bomber; a model of a bombed-out Israeli bus against a mural of Jerusalem featuring Al-Aqsa; promotion of her program “Breeze of the Free Men” on the Al-Quds satellite channel; and images, photos, and poems on Palestinian topics, including photos of Yasser Arafat, Hamas bombmaker Yahyah Ayyash aka “The Engineer, Hamas cofounder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Hamas cofounder Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rantisi, and imprisoned Hamas commander Abdallah Al-Barghouthi.
In her most recent tweet, on March 16, 2017, Al-Tamimi wrote: “Clarification released by Al-Tamimi’s family. Please share widely. Thank you for your cooperation.” The document included was in response to media reports stating that Jordan has refused to extradite her to the U.S. to stand trial. The family, it said, noted that no final decision had yet been made been made, and that they trust that the Court of Cassation will confirm the court of appeal’s decision.
A Palestinian “human rights” group claims the extradition request is “racist”:
The Human Center for Democracy and Rights in Gaza has called the US extradition request against Jordanian journalist Ahlam al-Tamimi, originally from Palestine, “a racist decision and against human ethics and norms.”
Will Ahlam ever see the inside of a U.S. courtroom or jail? Only if Jordan extradites her, which seems unlikely according to the report by The Jerusalem Post:
Jordan will not approve a US request to extradite Hamas-affiliated terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, who the US wanted to try for killing Americans during the Second Intifada, Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad reported on Thursday.
Citing several reasons for Jordan’s alleged refusal, Al-Ghad reported that Jordanian legal officials have said that the extradition was “not permissible” based on the fact that Tamimi was already tried in Israel and mostly because there is no existing extradition treaty between the US and Jordan.
Channel 2 noted on Thursday that Jordanian sources are claiming that there actually is an extradition treaty between the United States and Jordan that was signed back in 1995, but was never approved by the Jordanian parliament and is being overlooked by the latter for this reason….
According to Al-Ghad, Saleh Armouti, a Jordanian official currently serving as an MP in Jordan’s House of Representatives, not only justified Jordan’s alleged decision to refuse the request, but also went on to release a statement in defense of the released terrorist. “[It was] the legitimate right of the liberated prisoner Ahlam Tamimi [to] resist the occupier, as the United Nations laws stipulate the right to self-determination, as ruled [by] international legitimacy [as] the right to resist the occupation.”
If the request is indeed granted by Jordan it will set a precedent in the US, seeing as prior to US President Donald Trump’s election, the only legal proceedings against terrorists who have harmed Americans were criminal proceedings which took place in Israeli courts or civil wrongful death proceedings.
A copy of the Extradition Treaty signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995 is here (pdf.) I’ve been unable to locate proof of ratification by the Senate, but the FBI appears to be acting as if there is a treaty (according to reports), so perhaps I’m just not finding the source.
Tamimi’s clan appears to be confident Jordan will reject the extradition request:
The family of Jordanian journalist Ahlam al-Tamimi has expressed confidence that Jordan’s judiciary would reject the US request to extradite her, saying it fully trusts the justice and integrity of courts in the country.
“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.
Expect an escalating public campaign in Jordan not to turn over Ahlam to the U.S.
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Comments
“Will Ahlam ever see the inside of a U.S. courtroom or jail?”
Doubtful. She CAN see the nose of a Hell Fire missile, however.
My first thought was this is what drones are for.
Indictment is a first step. It limits her travel, may provide sanctions, and also makes her extradition possible based on the next US-Jordanian diplomatic or weapons’ deal. I doubt King Hussein will sacrifice the next round of F15 upgrades for this witch—if Trump elects to push it.
There is a new sheriff in town.
Theres an oxymoron, a palestinian human rights group!! HAHAHAHAHA…I can tell you now the very last thing on the minds of these groups is actually the best interests of Palestinians. The ONLY thing these so called human rights groups are interested in is their religious war of extermination against the Jews. Palestinians are nothing more than convenient pawns (who don’t help themselves).
Regards
Mailman
We don’t need extradition or anyone else’s permission to go and get her if we feel like it: United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655 (1992).
Gildad Shalit trouble, huh?
This peculiar way Israel has of “not negotiating with terrorists” causes some fairly annoying problems for the US.
There won’t be a Hellfire solution. She has no operational significance, and so is not a high-value military target. But more importantly, I don’t think Trump’s been displaying the same fundamental disregard for the rule of law and a generally orderly society which was such a prominent feature of Obama’s reign, and that would make extralegal assassination unlikely. BUT … if it did happen, the TV studio where she’d just happen to be reading the news live on-air would be an obvious target. Even if only because there’d be no children around.
Just put a price on her head.
Short case.
Case rule: Unless a treaty prohibits abduction, abduct away.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
UNITED STATES v. ALVAREZ MACHAIN
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit
No. 91-712. Argued April 1, 1992 — Decided June 15, 1992
Respondent, a citizen and resident of Mexico, was forcibly kidnapped from his home and flown by private plane to Texas, where he was arrested for his participation in the kidnapping and murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent and the agent’s pilot. After concluding that DEA agents were responsible for the abduction, the District Court dismissed the indictment on the ground that it violated the Extradition Treaty between the United States and Mexico (Extradition Treaty or Treaty), and ordered respondent’s repatriation. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Based on one of its prior decisions, the court found that, since the United States had authorized the abduction and since the Mexican government had protested the Treaty violation, jurisdiction was improper.
Held: The fact of respondent’s forcible abduction does not prohibit his trial in a United States court for violations of this country’s criminal laws. Pp. 3-15.
(a) A defendant may not be prosecuted in violation of the terms of an extradition treaty. United States v. Rauscher, 119 U.S. 407. However, when a treaty has not been invoked, a court may properly exercise jurisdiction even though the defendant’s presence is procured by means of a forcible abduction. Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436. Thus, if the Extradition Treaty does not prohibit respondent’s abduction, the rule of Ker applies and jurisdiction was proper. Pp. 3-7.
(b) Neither the Treaty’s language nor the history of negotiations and practice under it supports the proposition that it prohibits abductions outside of its terms. The Treaty says nothing about either country refraining from forcibly abducting people from the other’s territory or the consequences if an abduction occurs. In addition, although the Mexican government was made aware of theKer doctrine as early as 1906, and language to curtail Ker was drafted as early as 1935, the Treaty’s current version contains no such clause. Pp. 7-11.
(c) General principles of international law provide no basis for interpreting the Treaty to include an implied term prohibiting international abductions. It would go beyond established precedent and practice to draw such an inference from the Treaty based on respondent’s argument that abductions are so clearly prohibited in international law that there was no reason to include the prohibition in the Treaty itself. It was the practice of nations with regard to extradition treaties that formed the basis for this Court’s decision in Rauscher, supra, to imply a term in the extradition treaty between the United States and England. Respondent’s argument, however, would require a much larger inferential leap with only the most general of international law principles to support it. While respondent may be correct that his abduction was “shocking” and in violation of general international law principles, the decision whether he should be returned to Mexico, as a matter outside the Treaty, is a matter for the Executive Branch. Pp. 11-15.
946 F. 2d 1466, reversed and remanded.
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which White, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Blackmun and O’Connor, JJ., joined.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-712.ZS.html
Of course, as with Rasmea Odeh, if Israel hadn’t let her out in the first place there wouldn’t be a problem.
There is one way, and one way only, that makes it impossible for anyone to get out of prison to continue their criminality (or even in prison). And I think you know what I mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WF6irnzAiI
“Hava Nagila Texas Style”
Who cares about her any more? Take down Jordan for harboring her.