Ahlam Tamimi, the terrorist responsible for the Sbarro bombing in Jerusalem in 2001, was served with legal papers on X/Twitter on Tuesday in a case brought by the National Jewish Advocacy Center on behalf of the estate of Malka “Malki” Roth, according to the organization’s Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder.
The US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Arnold and Frimet Roth, the parents of 15-year-old Malka Roth, could serve Tamimi with legal papers through social media on X/Twitter, because Tamimi continues to reside in Jordan at an unknown address.
After efforts to locate Tamimi’s address proved unsuccessful, the plaintiffs were instructed to contact Jordan-based media outlet Etar, where she works as a columnist, email Jordanian attorney Mustafa Nasrallah, who represented Tamimi in her fight against extradition, and publish the summons online.
The court determined that these combined steps could be “reasonably calculated” to ensure Tamimi received notice of the summons.
Tamimi is wanted for her role as an accomplice in the August 9, 2001, suicide bombing at the Sbarro restaurant in downtown Jerusalem, which killed 15 people, including seven children and a pregnant woman.
Tamimi, who was then a university student and part-time journalist, scouted the location and escorted the bomber to the restaurant before leaving the scene.
Tamimi's exact location in Jordan remains unknown
Although Tamimi was sentenced to 16 life sentences, she was released in 2011 as part of the Gilad Schalit prisoner-exchange deal and relocated to Jordan. She remains wanted by the US for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against a US national outside the United States, resulting in death, and for aiding and abetting the attack.
In addition to Roth, two other American citizens were killed in the attack: Judith Shoshana Greenbaum, who was pregnant, and Chana Nachenberg.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post about the case’s developments, Goldfeder said Tamimi had spent the past 25 years in Amman “boasting” about killing Roth, “confident that no American court could touch her.”
“On Monday, a federal judge in Washington authorized us to serve her, and the Roth family’s case now proceeds whether she chooses to appear or not,” he said. “The criminal charges against her have sat unexecuted since they were filed, because Jordan will not hand her over, and Arnold and Frimet Roth have spent those years asking Washington and Amman to act and watching neither do it.”
Congress had created a civil “remedy” to ensure that justice would not depend on another government’s cooperation, Goldfeder said, adding that the court’s findings would follow Tamimi “wherever she goes.”
“She was never hard to find,” he said. “She was only hard to reach. That ended Monday. If and when, God willing, we win, the judgment is permanent and portable.
“An Anti-Terrorism Act judgment is treble damages plus fees, registrable in any federal district and renewable, so it never expires in practice. It attaches to anything she owns or is owed that ever touches the US financial system or any country that recognizes American judgments, which includes most of Europe, the UK, Canada, and Israel.
“Jordan will not enforce it. But the day she travels, inherits, is paid through a dollar-clearing bank, or has a publisher with a Western footprint, it bites.”
Goldfeder hopes case will prompt greater US scrutiny towards Jordan
Goldfeder said he hopes the case would also have wider political implications, including prompting greater scrutiny of US assistance to Jordan.
“I hope it also changes the conversation on [Capitol] Hill about conditioning Jordan’s aid package... and strips the ‘unratified treaty’ excuse of its respectability,” he said.
Tamimi’s ability to live openly in Jordan had been sustained by the lack of consequences for the country in refusing to act against her, Goldfeder said.
“After judgment, every outlet that pays her is paying a US judgment debtor, every transfer to her is traceable, and anyone who helps her move assets around the judgment has a fraudulent-transfer problem of his own,” he said.
Follow us on GoogleSource: The Jerusalem Post · DANIELLE GREYMAN-KENNARD
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