Jordan highest court refuses to extradite Ahlam Al-Tamimi to US

The Jordanian Court of Cassation, the highest judicial body in the country, on Monday upheld a decision by the Amman Court of Appeals not to extradite the freed Palestinian prisoner, Ahlam Al-Tamimi, to US authorities on charges of using “weapons of mass destruction against a US nationals outside the US, resulting in death”.

Image of Ahlam al-Tamimi

Jordan’s News Agency, Petra, reported a judicial source as saying the Kingdom and the United States signed an extradition treaty, on 28th March 1995, but the treaty was not ratified by the Jordanian parliament.

The US Justice Department asked the Jordanian government to extradite Al-Tamimi after the FBI placed her on a “Most Wanted” list for her involvement in an Israeli restaurant bombing in 2001 in which two Americans were killed.

Read: Palestine scholars reject US extradition request for female Palestinian freed from Israeli Jail

Al-Tamimi spent ten years in Israeli jails after being convicted as an accomplice in a 2001 suicide bombing in Jerusalem which killed 15 people including two Americans and wounded 122 others.

The Israeli authorities released Al-Tamimi and handed her to Jordan in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange deal between Tel Aviv and Hamas movement, mediated by Egypt.