US asks Jordan to extradite ex-Palestine detainee Ahlam Tamimi

The United States has asked Jordan to extradite freed Palestinian prisoner, Ahlam Tamimi, so she can stand trial in the US for her alleged involvement in an attack in the occupied city of Jerusalem in 2001.

The US National Security Council said: “The US government continues to seek her extradition and the Government of Jordan’s assistance in bringing her to justice for her role in the heinous attack.”

On 9 August 2001, a Palestinian man broke into a pizza restaurant in occupied Jerusalem and blew himself up, killing 15 people including two American citizens, one of whom was Malki Roth, an Israeli-American woman.

Tamimi was arrested for her alleged involvement in the operation weeks later and was sentenced to 16 life sentences. She was released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Palestinian factions. She currently lives in Jordan.

Last year, a document issued by the Interpol revealed that Tamimi’s name had been removed from its wanted list.

In 1995, the United States and Jordan signed an extradition treaty, but in 2017, Jordan’s high court blocked Tamimi’s extradition, since the treaty was never ratified.

In 2013, the Justice Department included Tamimi on the FBI’s most wanted list and charged her with “conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction against Americans outside the United States”.

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