Petition to extradite terrorist behind Jerusalem massacre nears 12K signatures

The father of a teenager who died in a Jerusalem suicide attack in 2001 says he still hopes to see his daughter’s murderer “in leg chains and handcuffs” after a petition for the killer’s extradition from Jordan reached 12,000 signatures.

Arnold Roth, whose 15-year-old daughter Malki died in the attack on the Sbarro pizza restaurant in 2001, told Jewish News that support for the petition to extradite terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to the US from Jordan has been “growing strongly”.

Tamimi proudly claimed credit for the attack in 2001. Admitting to scouting the location of Sbarro because it was known to be a family favourite, she previously said that she only felt disappointed as she had “hoped for a larger toll”. She was released from an Israeli prison as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011 and now lives freely in Jordan.

You can view the petition here.

“It’s obvious that Jordan’s refusal has much more to do with politics than justice. But it’s the justice – more accurately the injustice – of Ahlam Tamimi’s obscene freedom that has been bringing people to the petition site to sign”, Mr Roth said.

Encouraging the US to further push the Jordanian authorities to extradite Tamimi, Mr Roth said he was reassured by the US State Department after they said that their treaty with Jordan should cover Tamimi’s extradition, despite reports that said a Jordanian court ruled it invalid in 2017.

He said: “The US governments of both Presidents Obama and Trump have taken important steps to indict Ahlam Tamimi. We certainly would like the US to step up the pressure.

“Jordan has extradited fugitive terrorists to the US for years. They are serving long prison sentences now, just as we hope Ahlam Tamimi will soon.”

But Mr Roth says the Jordanian authorities are paying no attention to their treaty with the US, telling Maajid Nawaz on LBC that “Jordan faces to lose all its foreign aid from the United States”, if they don’t take action on Tamimi.

However, Mr Roth told Jewish News that multiple legal experts have branded the Jordanian position “untenable”.

He said: “It [Jordan’s position] ignores the law and is inconsistent with what law-abiding nations and allies do. If more attention were given by the news industry – and Jewish News UK is certainly on the correct side of this journalistic failure – we would have seen Tamimi in leg-chains and handcuffs long ago. We still hope we will, and soon.”