Roth presses for answers from DFAT

Arnold Roth has questioned the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s confirmation that his daughter’s killer was raised during King Abdullah II’s visit to Canberra, saying he has been told the matter was mentioned but given no detail of what was said.

“Don’t ask by whom, or to whom, or what the mention was about,” Roth wrote in a statement to The AJN. “There appears to be a limited appetite there for the actual issues.”

Malki Roth, 15, was among 16 people killed when a Hamas suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a crowded Jerusalem restaurant on August 9, 2001. Seven of the dead were children. Ahlam Tamimi, who scouted the location and escorted the bomber, was sentenced to 16 life terms in Israel, released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, and has since lived openly in Amman.

She has faced US terrorism charges since 2013 over the deaths of American nationals, including Malki, who held dual citizenship, and is the sole female on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list. Jordan has refused to extradite her.

Roth said Jordan harboured Tamimi despite being a close ally of the United States, receiving billions in annual US aid, and holding what he described as a binding, valid treaty requiring her surrender.