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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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November 21, 2014
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Prosecution:
Lies Should Keep Rasmieh Odeh Detained
by IPT News • Nov 21, 2014 at
5:10 pm
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Attorneys for Rasmieh Odeh say a federal judge was "unreasonable and unfair" when he ordered Odeh held without bond Nov. 10 pending a spring
sentencing date.
Odeh faces up to 10 years in prison and subsequent deportation from the
United States after being convicted of naturalization fraud.
Her conviction was based on her failure to disclose 10 years spent in an
Israeli prison after being convicted for a series of 1969 Jerusalem
bombings that killed two college students. On applications for a visa and later for naturalization as an American citizen, Odeh claimed to
have never been arrested, convicted or imprisoned.
While she claims she was tortured and really was innocent in the
bombings, immigration officials testified
that she never would have been allowed into the country if they knew about
her true record.
In paperwork filed earlier this week, defense attorney Michael Deutsch
said that, if given a chance, he could show Odeh's "unique and
extraordinary ties to her community" which would prove she is no
flight risk. Odeh already is being punished, Deutsch wrote, "beginning with her sudden frightening and
humiliating physical seizure and handcuffing in the courtroom, in front of
the large group of her supporters and friends and clients." She has no
warm clothes or blankets in the Michigan jail holding her.
In response, prosecutors say that Odeh's word is not worth much, and the
facts supporting her conviction show "serial dishonesty carried out over
decades."
Odeh shows a "lack of respect for this Court and these
proceedings." Between her conviction and her bond revocation, Odeh
slammed the "racist verdict." And during her testimony, Odeh
repeatedly violated the court's order not to discuss her view that her
Israeli conviction was unjust, since the issue for jurors to decide involved
Odeh's answers to U.S. immigration applications. That shows "she pays
no heed to this Court's orders," prosecutors wrote.
As Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson notes at the Legal Insurrection blog, the government
response included new disclosures which further undermine Odeh's story.
Israeli officials "found explosive bricks in her room" the night they
arrested Odeh, the reply says. And while Odeh claims her father, by then a
U.S. citizen, was forced by their Israeli captors to rape her and watch her
be abused, he reported nothing remotely out of the ordinary when he met
with an American diplomat at the U.S. Consulate. According to a cable
attached to the prosecution memo, Odeh's father reported his daughter
complained she was in "uncomfortable, overcrowded jail conditions … no
worse than standard treatment afforded majority detainees at Jerusalem
jail."
Odeh, prosecutors wrote, "has been telling stories for many years
without any basis in truth, and continued to tell them in the present trial
even after the Court told her directly that such evidence was not
admissible at trial."
That record should outweigh Odeh's claim that she deserves to be
released from jail pending her sentencing, they argued.
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