This morning, a Detroit federal district court jury returned a verdict of guilty in the naturalization fraud case of 67 year old Rasmieh Odeh, who failed to disclose on her citizenship application her involvement in a 1969 terrorist bombing in Jerusalem that killed two Hebrew University Students. Odeh could face a 10 year federal prison term before deportation. The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) which has followed the Odeh case reported the circumstances behind the verdict in the Eastern Michigan federal district court case, “Rasmieh Odeh Guilty of Naturalization Fraud”: U.S. District Judge Gershwin A. Drain told jurors the verdict is a fair and reasonable one based on the evidence that came in, the Associated Press reports. That means jurors were convinced she knowingly lied on her immigration applications, and did not accept defense arguments that she merely misunderstand questions she found ambiguous. While she claims her Israeli conviction was unjust, the fraud case was focused on what Odeh told U.S. immigration officials when she first applied to come here on a visa obtained in 1995 and when she applied for naturalization in 2004.Odeh was arrested on October 22, 2013 under a Federal indictment for not disclosing her prior Israeli conviction, sentencing and incarceration for the PFLP terror bombing. Odeh defended her misrepresentations on her application for citizenship on the grounds that she had been tortured while incarcerated in Israel. Given today’s Eastern Michigan federal court verdict, Odeh could face a 10 year sentence and deportation. The IPT report today noted who rallied to her defense: Her prosecution sparked a campaign by colleagues and supporters aimed at pressuring the U.S. Attorney in Detroit to drop the case. Dozens of people traveled from Chicago, where Odeh now lives, to Detroit, to pack the courtroom during the trial and demonstrate in front of the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse. The Investigative Project on Terrorism tracked the campaign on Odehs behalf for months, including the support it attracted from the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, American Muslims for Palestine, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a group of 124 feminist academics.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 20:47:14 +0000
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