Wednesday, June 28, 2017

28-Jun-17: In Australia, a campaign to press Jordan to extradite Malki's killer


Kudos to Australian parliamentarian Michael Danby MP who created and published the advertisement above, calling on Australia's political leadership to pressure the Jordanians to extradite our daughter's killer. As an awareness building campaign, we hope it gets plenty of support. The half-page ad appears prominently in today's edition of The Australian, an influential daily, on page 4.

We have written frequently about the search for justice for our murdered daughter. We got into higher gear in the wake of the announcement of US Federal criminal charges against the murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, which were unveiled in March. (See "14-Mar-17: Sbarro massacre mastermind is now formally charged and extradition is sought")

Jordan has had an extradition treaty with the United States since 1995, and the US, which has no doubt the treaty is in effect, has called for Jordan to extradite Tamimi. Jordan refuses: see "28-Mar-17: Terror, justice and the Hashemite king of Jordan". For the moment, and presumably for reasons of High Statesmanship, the US is being passive. We're in touch with two of its government departments to try to ensure they don't forget us or this painful and offensive issue.

Here's the message that Danby's office mailed out yesterday with the ad:
Malki Roth was a dual Australian-US citizen when she was murdered by the Hamas terrorist Ahlam Al-Tamimi in Jerusalem in 2002. You will know I have strongly advocated for her father Arnold and mother Frimet and their campaign to achieve justice for their daughter. We all understand the fight against terrorism is indivisible. By catching and punishing a monster like Al-Tamimi who lives freely in Jordan we are also acting against the threat to innocent lives everywhere. 
These powerful advertisements are designed to pressure the Turnbull Government to support the new 2017 FBI warrant for Al-Tamimi’s arrest. The United States has a current extradition treaty with Jordan and the Jordanians have previously extradited to the United States. Prime Minister Turnbull has now indicated that he will get the Australian embassy in Jordan to “assess the situation”. He, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, and Attorney General George Brandis should do more than that. They should challenge the Jordanian Government to agree to the American request; extradite a convicted terrorist Ahlam Al-Tamimi to the United States achieving some kind of justice for Malki Roth z'l' 
It offers these follow-up contact points:
If you have friends and contacts in Australia, we hope you will encourage them to give us their support.

And if you have friends and contacts in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, ask them if they know the name Eyad Ismoil [background here - hat-tip to Daled Amos]. They should. But we have already learned about at least one very high-ranking public official (we're being cautious about giving away too much at this stage) in the Hashemite Kingdom who claims never to have heard of him or the important and relevant issue he represents. We must change that.

Finally, if the face on the left of the ad is not familiar to you, here's some background: "Malcolm Turnbull expects Australia will extradite Islamic State terrorist Neil Prakash".

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