Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—The member for Fadden, the chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, of which I'm deputy chair, has this morning tabled additional information about extraterritorial jurisdiction. This document, now public, entails the following: Jordan's antiterrorism law is subject to its own Penal Code No. 16 of 1960. Article 10 of the Penal Code No. 16 applies extraterritorial jurisdiction to all acts that are considered as felonies under Jordanian law, including acts under the antiterrorism law, where such acts are committed by a Jordanian citizen or foreigners residing in Jordan, even if they take place outside Jordan. So apparently, thanks to the Attorney-General's diligence in questioning his own department's advice, Australia would not have difficulty in extraditing foreign terrorists to Australia. Through the making of this clarification and the member for Fadden adding this erratum in parliament, we are making it clear that Australia and Jordan can address such difficult extraditions.

This is particularly relevant for me, as any fair-minded interpretation of article 3 of Jordan's own laws on antiterrorism would see the arrest of Ahlam al-Tamimi. The member for Fadden read article 3 out, I will just read it out again:

Joining or attempting to join any armed groups or terrorist organizations, recruiting or attempting to recruit people to join such groups or organizations or training such persons for the said purpose, whether inside or outside the kingdom—

That would see, in my view, the arrest of Ahlam al-Tamimi, a Jordanian national convicted—but released in a prisoner swap—of assisting a particularly obscene act of terrorism at a pizza shop in downtown Jerusalem on 9 August 2001, in which 15 civilians were murdered, including seven children and a pregnant woman, and 130 people wounded. Tamimi has publicly admitted that she planned this attack and that she drove the suicide bomber to the target.

One of the people killed, I regret to advise this parliament, was my constituent Malki Roth, daughter of my constituents Arnold and Frimet Roth. Under Jordan's own law we should see Tamimi surrendered in response to the US FBI most-wanted-terrorist warrant issued last year. Now, thanks to the Attorney-General's clarification and the member for Fadden's erratum in this parliament and clarification, there's a possibility that Australia will also deal with this individual that the FBI issued a warrant for last year.

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