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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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March 23, 2017
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Breaking
News: Rasmieh Odeh Reportedly Accepts Plea Deal
IPT News
March 23, 2017
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Editor's Note: For greater detail on the Rasmieh Odeh case, her
elevation to hero by Palestinian advocates and the impact on her victims,
please watch the Investigative Project on Terrorism's five-part video
series, "Spinning a Terrorist Into a Victim."
 Palestinian
terrorist Rasmieh Odeh, who faces a May 16 retrial for
naturalization fraud, reportedly has agreed to plead guilty and leave the
United States in exchange for avoiding any prison time.
According to a statement from her supporters, Odeh "has made
the difficult decision to accept a plea agreement." [Emphasis
original.] The statement hailed the decision as "a victory,
considering that the government had earlier fought for a sentence of 5-7
years."
No court papers have been filed to confirm the report.
Odeh was convicted in November 2014 and sentenced to 18 months
in prison, the loss of her citizenship and deportation. The Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Gershwin A.
Drain in February 2016, ruling that he improperly barred testimony supporting
Odeh's claim that she failed to disclose her Israeli conviction for
participating in two 1969 Jerusalem bombings, including one at a grocery
story that killed two Hebrew University students.
Drain granted
a new trial including the testimony, prompting federal prosecutors to issue a new indictment adding greater emphasis on
Odeh's acknowledged membership in the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group.
Odeh's supporters treat her as a hero to the Palestinian cause. They
have maintained that she is innocent of the immigration charge and insist
she was not responsible for the 1969 bombings, even though she confessed
and Israeli investigators found materials used to make the bombs in her
home. That confession followed weeks of torture, they claim.
But records from her trial indicate otherwise. She confessed within a day of her arrest, records show. One
Israeli interrogator called her "an easy nut to crack" and
testimony at her trial indicated she identified more than 80 fellow PFLP
members who later were arrested.
Thursday's statement casts prosecutors as the party hesitant to go back
to court, saying they "clearly want to dodge a public and legal
defense that puts U.S.-backed Israel on trial for its crimes against Rasmea
and its continuing crimes against the Palestinian people as a whole."
That bit of spin is challenged by aggressive steps prosecutors took in
preparation for a new trial. In addition to issuing the superseding
indictment, they hoped to depose two women who worked with Odeh in the attacks
and publicly discussed their roles.
Odeh served 10 years in an Israeli prison, but was released as part of a
prisoner exchange with the PFLP. She made her way to the United States in
1995 and applied for naturalization as a U.S. citizen in 2004.She failed to
disclose her terrorist arrest, conviction and resulting imprisonment despite specific questions about an applicant's past
record. And she never told immigration officials she was part of the PFLP.
During her 2014 trial, immigration officials testified that, had she answered honestly, she never
would have been allowed into the country.
None of the evidence contradicting Odeh's story gave her supporters
pause. Thursday's statement announcing the plea deal described her as
"corner of the movement for social justice in the U.S.
From the Movement for Black Lives in Ferguson, Chicago, and beyond, to the
call for a global #WomenStrike on International Women's Day, Rasmea has
become synonymous with resilience and resistance." [Emphasis
original.]
On April 2, Odeh is scheduled
to speak at an upcoming conference sponsored by a major BDS group, the Jewish Voice for Peace. Speakers
on her panel include the rabidly anti-Israeli Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour.
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