Ahlam Tamimi, the terrorist behind the 2001 bombing at a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, was sued in U.S. federal court this week. The plaintiffs aim to find out “who pays her, who publishes her, which institutions move the funds and whether any of it passes through the American financial system,” according to Mark Goldfeder, the attorney who filed the suit.
Goldfeder, a rabbi and CEO and director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, told JNS that Jordan, the country in which Tamimi has been living at an undisclosed location, “has been the obstacle for more than a decade, and the entire point of this case is to stop asking Jordan’s permission.”
“A federal judgment is permanent and portable. It can be registered in any district, renewed indefinitely and enforced in any country that recognizes American judgments, which covers most of the places a person might want to go,” he said.
That judgment would “attach to anything she owns or is owed that ever touches the American financial system,” Goldfeder told JNS.
The case is one in which the plaintiffs need not prove guilt given Tamimi’s guilty plea in Israel and her documented public confessions, carried out in a boasting manner, according to the lawyer.
“Discovery, and especially post-judgment discovery, is about the money and the machinery,” Goldfeder told JNS. “Those answers are what make a judgment collectible, and they are also how you learn who has kept a wanted terrorist comfortable for a quarter century.”
In an unusual step, Royce Lamberth, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled on Monday that the parents of Malka “Malki” Roth, one of three Americans killed in the blast, could serve legal papers to convicted terrorist Ahlam Tamimi via the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
‘Under legal pressure’
The National Jewish Advocacy Center originally brought the case under the Anti-Terrorism Act in August. Roth’s parents, Arnold and Frimet Roth, are listed as plaintiffs, representing Malki’s estate.
“This lawsuit places Tamimi under legal pressure in an American court for the first time,” Arnold Roth told JNS. “We hope the case will also draw public attention to the fact that the U.S. criminal prosecution has remained stalled for more than a decade.”
Tamimi has lived in Jordan since being freed from Israeli prison in 2011 as part of a 1,000-plus prisoner exchange with Hamas for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Tamimi has long bragged about her role in the bombing. She used her journalist’s access to Jerusalem to scout the pizzeria site and escorted the terrorist bomber to the scene. Seven children were among the 15 people killed in the attack. The Americans Chana Nachenberg and Judith Shoshana Greenbaum, who was pregnant, were among the victims.
Tamimi’s exact address in Jordan is unknown, and no social media accounts have been located for her. Lamberth ruled that contact with Tamimi’s lawyer and the newspaper that publishes her columns, together with postings on X and the National Jewish Advocacy Center, would legally suffice for purposes of serving the suit.
In 2013, the United States charged Tamimi with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals abroad, resulting in death, unsealing the charges in 2017. She is listed on the FBI “Most Wanted” terrorist list.
The U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice program has offered up to $5 million for information leading to her arrest.
Jordan, which has had an extradition agreement with the United States since 1995, has refused to comply in Tamimi’s case. Successive U.S. administrations have been unable or unwilling to enforce the treaty.
“It’s incomprehensible and deeply troubling to us that in all these years, no U.S. official has explained to us as Malki’s family or to the public how it is that Tamimi continues to enjoy a free life in Jordan, a U.S. partner country,” Arnold Roth told JNS.
“Justice for Malki and the other Sbarro victims, already thwarted for years, demands answers and accountability,” he said. “We hope this lawsuit is only the beginning.”
Jordan has said that handing Tamimi over would lead to riots in the streets.
Those involved with the case have told JNS repeatedly that Jordan’s claim is a convenient excuse for Washington, which is loath to rock its relationship with the country.
