(March 30, 2021 / JNS) The American terror victims of the 2001 suicide bombing at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem have never gotten the justice they deserve. U.S. law authorizes the prosecution and punishment of a terrorist who murders Americans abroad. Yet the mastermind of the Sbarro bombing, Ahlam Tamimi, lives openly and freely in Jordan, and is treated like a celebrity. Recently, this gross miscarriage of justice got even more grotesque. Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, dropped an international warrant for Tamimi’s arrest and removed her from its “Most Wanted” list.
Interpol’s actions make a mockery of its commitment to work with the United States and its 193 other member countries “to make the world a safer place.” The actions are also the latest affront to the American terror victims and their families, who for all these years have had to live with the fact that an unremorseful terrorist has not been punished for her crimes under U.S. law.
Tamimi’s life of freedom and celebrity in her home country of Jordan is hard to stomach, considering the depravity of her conduct. When she conspired with the terrorist group Hamas to carry out the bombing, Tamimi carefully chose the pizzeria as the target and the lunch hour because of the large number of Jews, especially families, who patronized it. The bomb that was used was hidden in a guitar case, surrounded by nails, to inflict maximum pain and damage to its victims.
That it did. Fifteen people were killed, including seven children, and approximately 130 were wounded. The victims included six Americans. Fifteen-year-old Malki Roth and Judith Hayman Greenbaum, who was pregnant with her first child, were killed. The Americans wounded were 21-year-old David Danzig, 25-year-old Matthew P. Gordon, 2-year-old Sara Shifra Nachenberg and Joanne (Chana) Nachenberg, who has been in a vegetative state ever since.
Tamimi has never expressed regret for the horrific loss and pain she caused...
