Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi ( ar, ساجدة مبارك عطروس الريشاوي} 1970 – 4 February 2015) was a failed

suicide bomber A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...

. She was convicted of possessing explosives and intending to commit a terrorist act in the 9 November

2005 Amman bombings The 2005 Amman bombings were a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks on three hotel lobbies in Amman, Jordan, on 9 November 2005. The explosions at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, the Radisson SAS Hotel, and the Days Inn started at around 20:50 ...

in Jordan that killed 60 people and injured 115 others, having survived when her

explosive belt An explosive belt (also called suicide belt or a suicide vest) is an improvised explosive device, a belt or a vest packed with explosives and armed with a detonator, worn by suicide bombers. Explosive belts are usually packed with ball bearings, ...

failed to detonate. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the triple bombings that simultaneously hit three nearby hotels, and said they carried out the attack because the hotels were "a secure place for the filthy Israeli and Western tourists to spread corruption and adultery at the expense and suffering of the Muslims in these countries."

Background and Amman bombings

Al-Rishawi and her husband Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari are thought to have been Iraqi citizens and had Iraqi accents. According to her confession they traveled into Jordan about five days before the bombings on forged passports. She, along with her husband, entered the Amman Radisson Hotel ballroom during a wedding. When she had trouble detonating her suicide belt her husband pushed her out of the room before detonating a bomb that killed 38 people.

Court proceedings

Al-Rishawi was later captured by Jordanian authorities and confessed on national television. She was shown making a filmed confession with an apparent suicide bomb device around her and a detonator in hand showing that the device failed to explode, but later retracted her confession. She was convicted of possessing explosives and intending to commit a terrorist attack, and sentenced to death by hanging by a Jordanian

military court A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...

on 21 September 2006. She appealed this conviction but her appeal was dismissed in January 2007. At the time of her execution, she was still engaged in the process of appeal of her sentence.

ISIL

Al-Rishawi was reportedly the sister of a former close aide of deceased al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, named by some reports as Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, who was killed by US forces in Iraq. On 24 January 2015, the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...

(ISIL) offered to trade Japanese journalist

Kenji Goto was a Japanese freelance video journalist covering wars and conflicts, refugees, poverty, AIDS, and child education around the world. In October 2014, he was captured and held hostage by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants after en ...

and spare Royal Jordanian Air Force Lieutenant Muath al-Kasasbeh for Sajida al-Rishawi. Jordan put forward the option of exchanging al-Rishawi for al-Kasasbeh. The proposed exchange did not go further because ISIL failed to give plausible proof of al-Kasasbeh being alive; Goto was beheaded in late January 2015 and ISIL released video footage in early February 2015 of al-Kasasbeh being

burned alive ''Burned Alive: A Victim of the Law of Men'' is a best-selling book, ostensibly a first-person account of an attempted honor killing. The author, Souad, is described as a Palestinian woman now living in Europe who survived an attempted murder ...

, although Jordanian intelligence officials reported his killing took place in early January 2015.

Execution

Al-Rishawi and Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly were executed by hanging in the morning of 4 February 2015, which was expedited in retaliation for the burning death of al-Kasasbeh by the

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