The United States has rejected a claim by Jordan over its refusal to deport wanted Palestinian-Jordanian Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, as a Jordanian court ruled in 2017 that Amman’s extradition treaty with Washington is invalid, despite the U.S. State Department saying the opposite in a report published this week.
The report could lead to increased pressure by the White House on Jordan to extradite Tamimi to the United States, who helped organize the well-known suicide-bombing at a Sbarro pizzeria on Aug. 9, 2001, which killed 15 people, including two Americans, and injured about 130 others.
Tamimi, who planned the attack, has shown no remorse, saying she has “no regrets.”
She had been awarded $51,836 until she was released from prison, as part of a 2011 prisoner exchange that included Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit’s release from Hamas captivity, when she then escaped to Jordan.
Tamimi is on America’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” list, but the United States has been unable to secure her extradition as a 1995 extradition agreement was not ratified by Jordan’s government.
