AMMAN: Jordan’s Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal to extradite Ahlam Al-Tamimi, who was placed on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” list, as her family urged Jordan’s government to ensure Al-Tamimi’s safety.
The court upheld a ruling issued by an appeals court, the official Petra news agency reported.
Petra, quoting a judicial source, said the extradition cannot go through because Jordan’s Parliament has never ratified an extradition agreement with the US signed in March 1995.
Al-Tamimi was blacklisted by the US in March and charged with “conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against US nationals outside the US, resulting in death.”
The US Justice Department said Al-Tamimi, now in her mid-30s, escorted a Hamas suicide bomber to Jerusalem on Aug. 9, 2001, where he detonated a bomb, hidden inside a guitar, in a pizza shop.
The bomb killed 15, including two Americans, and wounded another 122. Al-Tamimi was arrested and put on trial, where she pleaded guilty, and was sentenced in 2003 to 16 life terms in prison.
She was released in a 2011 Israeli prisoner swap with Hamas. She faces possible execution or life in prison if she is captured, tried and convicted in the US.
Al-Tamimi’s family, in a statement received by Arab News, asked Jordan’s government to provide security and safety to their daughter and her husband Nizar as freed prisoners from Israeli prisons.
The statement said the judiciary “has always proven to uphold its independence, autonomy, fairness and patriotism. We have been fully confident that the court would issue its decision in favor of our daughter.”
The statement thanked individuals, civil society institutions and members of the media and Parliament for their support and solidarity in the face of “American injustice.”
Meanwhile, Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood described the court’s decision as a firm stance in the face of all those who seek to affect Jordan’s sovereignty and violate the basic human rights of its citizens.
“The Muslim Brotherhood condemns and deplores the position and attitude of the US administration and its double standard, as it has remained silent and supportive of war crimes of the Zionists against the Palestinian people, but accuses the Jordanian citizen of using weapons of mass destruction,” it said in a statement.
