Interpol drops arrest warrant for Sbarro bomber Ahlam al-Tamimi

RSS Feed

Interpol drops arrest warrant for Sbarro bomber Ahlam al-Tamimi

March 14th, 2021

Awake Goy

International law enforcement body Interpol has dropped its arrest warrant for Ahlam Ahmad al-Tamimi, the terrorist responsible for the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including eight children.

Arab media sources first reported about this on March 8, when a letter from Interpol said that Tamimi was no longer “subject to notice.”

Her husband, Nizar Tamimi, later confirmed this on Facebook, writing in a post: “With this legal victory, her name was removed from the wanted list of Interpol, praise be to God,” according to i24.

Tamimi was arrested and imprisoned for her role in the bombing, and was sentenced to 16 life sentences. However, she was freed in 2011 during the prisoner swap to free captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Tamimi has reaffirmed her lack of remorse for the deaths she caused in multiple interviews since her release.

Following her release, she hosted a weekly show for nearly five years, between 2012 and 2016, which was filmed in Jordan and jointly produced by Hamas and Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood.

She has made many other media appearances since, including on the BBC’s Arabic-language channel on October 8. This sparked outrage from the families of victims of the bombing, who urged the BBC to apologize, which it later did.

In 2013, the US Justice Department filed criminal charges against Tamimi, who currently resides in Jordan, but Amman claims to lack an extradition treaty with Washington. However, Jordan appears in the US State Department’s “Treaties in Force” document, which states that the two countries have an extradition agreement since 1995. The Trump administration had offered a $5 million reward for her capture, multiple reports noted.

In response to Interpol’s decision to drop Tamimi’s arrest warrant, the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) called on the international law enforcement agency to reimpose it immediately.

In a letter addressed to Interpol Secretary-General Jürgen Stock, SWC international relations director Dr. Shimon Samuels noted that removing the arrest warrant “would encourage further terrorism and deny justice and closure for the victims and survivors.”

He added that SWC “urges you to prevent INTERPOL from falling to Palestinian mayhem.”

Source