Ahlam Tamimi, the Palestinian woman who helped plan and launch the Sbarro
suicide bombing in Jerusalem in 2001, claimed over the weekend that Israel asked
the “Russian mafia” to kill her and other Palestinian prisoners who were
released in the Gilad Schalit prisoner exchange agreement.
Tamimi, who was
released in October 2011 together with over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in
exchange for Schalit, told Al-Jazeera that the Mossad was planning to
assassinate her and 40 other prisoners who were deported to Arab and Islamic
countries.
She did not provide further details of what she described as a
“filthy plot.”
Israel has asked the Russian mafia to assassinate the
former prisoners living abroad, Tamimi, who is currently in Jordan,
charged.
“Israel has prepared a plan for the execution of this filthy
plot,” she said.
She added that Israel has already begun targeting
Palestinian prisoners who were released into the West Bank by re-arresting a
number of them.
Tamimi boasted that Israel was forced through the
prisoner deal to abandon its pledge not to succumb to the demands of Schalit’s
captors.
Tamimi spent 10 years in Israeli prison for her role in the
Sbarro suicide bombing in downtown Jerusalem in 2001.
She had been
sentenced to 16 life terms after the court found that she played a major role in
planning and executing the attack, which killed 15 civilians and wounded 130
others.
Tamimi is now hosting her own talk show on a Hamas-affiliated TV
station.