Detroit – A federal jury found a Palestinian immigrant charged with immigration fraud guilty on Monday for failing to disclose her conviction and imprisonment in a Jerusalem supermarket bombing that killed two people.
Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, 67, was charged for not revealing an Israeli military court conviction for several bombings in 1969. She served 10 years before being released in a prisoner swap with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Odeh is associate director of Chicago’s Arab American Action Network. She is widely respected in Chicago for her work with immigrants, especially Arab women.
The criminal case against her angered pro-Palestinian activists who accused the U.S. government of trying to silence critics of Israel. Dozens of supporters traveled from Chicago to watch the trial, either in the courtroom or in a separate courtroom that carried a video feed.
Odeh also had said Israeli authorities tortured her to get a confession. But U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain barred reference to that at trial. He said what happened in Israel was not relevant to whether she lied on the citizenship form.
“I think your verdict is a fair and reasonable one based on the evidence that came in,” Drain told the jury after the verdict was announced.
Odeh face up to 10 years in a U.S. prison and loss of her U.S. citizenship.
She and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel clashed during Odeh’s testimony last week when she insisted she didn’t believe the criminal history questions extended beyond the U.S.
Odeh was interviewed in 2004 by a Detroit immigration officer, Jennifer Williams, who told jurors she always tells citizenship applicants that criminal history applies to “anywhere in the world.” Odeh, however, testified that Williams didn’t use those words.
“I remember exactly what she said. … She didn’t add questions,” Odeh said.
During closing remarks, defense attorney Michael Deutsch said there was plenty of reasonable doubt for the jury.
“How hard would it be to make a form that clearly states what they’re asking?” he said.
0 thoughts on “Arab Activist Guilty Of Not Disclosing Jerusalem Bombing Conviction”
Jewish militants (a verbal redundancy) are howling for this woman’s head. An example is the notorious Pam Geller, who claims that Ms. Odeh is a terrorist, and that Obama will help Ms. Odeh, since Obama terrorists, and hates Jews.
The corporate media and all the Jewish blogs say Ms. Ogeh was “convicted in Israel for her role in the 1969 bombings of a supermarket, in which two people were killed, and a bombing of the British Consulate in Jerusalem, on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terrorist organization.”
“Convicted.”
As if Israel’s legal system is fair and just with regard to Palestinians.
A Fox News headline last year ran, “Convicted Palestinian terrorist found living in Evergreen Park.”
“Odeh was arrested at her apartment in the 9700-block of South Kedzie in Evergreen Park IL. Neighbors were shocked to learn of her past.”
It’s not only the Jews that want her head. The FBI does too. (Or is that another verbal redundancy?) On 24 Sep 2010 the FBI raided the homes of 23 anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. (The FBI claims that it had search warrants, but the warrants have been “indefinitely sealed.”) The FBI claimed to be looking for links to “terrorist groups” in Colombia and Palestine. The FBI targeted the activists because they had attended protests at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul Minnesota in 2008. Members of multiple other organizations were also targeted, including the Anti-War Committee in Minneapolis, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Arab American Action Network,, Palestine Solidarity Group – Chicago, and others. The Jews live in constant fear that these disparate organizations will form powerful coalitions, causing the BDS movement to gain strength. And so the Jews frequently order the US government to attack.
(The FBI has a long history of criminalizing social justice movements in the USA so that the movements cannot form coalitions with other communities or organizations. An example was the CONTELPRO operations against Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who the FBI accused of being “communists.” Students for a Democratic Society were targeted as “communists.” So was the Sanctuary Movement that supported Central American refugees from Reagan’s death squads in the 1980s. With the fall of the USSR, the “communists” became “terrorists.”)
One of the FBI’s victims in the 2010 sweeps was Hatem Abudayyah, executive director of the Arab American Action Network (AAAN). The assistant director at the time was Ms. Odeh, who then began communicating with a group known as the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.
The FBI raids were ordered by Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas (JEW) who was the prosecutor in the case of the Holy Land Five, the heads of the largest Muslim charity in the U.S. before 9/11. Jonas got the five men convicted of providing charity to children in the Gaza Death Camp, and sentenced to up to 65 years in prison.
However Mr. Jonas was unable to convict any of the anti-war activists he had targeted in the FBI’s nationwide sweep.
Frustrated, Mr. Jonas and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox wrote to Israel, asking for any information on the people the FBI had arrested. BINGO. Ms. Odeh was a “convicted terrorist!” (Based on a confession extracted under torture in 1969.) Mr. Jonas had hit the jackpot. He had Ms. Odeh arrested for “immigration fraud” on 22 Oct 2013.
Ms. Odeh is being prosecuted in Detroit, because that is where the alleged immigration fraud allegedly happened in 2004. Her “trial” began on 4 Nov 2014, and is expected to last three weeks.
There’s no justice for Palestinians anywhere in the world. This was a show trial in a kangaroo court.
I do not believe that Mrs. Odeh bombed anything or anybody. Poor innocent woman.
The trial was quick, and its conclusion in a ‘guilty’ verdict was a fairly foregone conclusion since the judge prohibited major evidence for Rasmea’s innocence from being introduced in court, and overruled almost every objection made by the defense (and sustained almost every objection raised by the prosecution).
The thing is, Rasmea has never ‘hidden’ her arrest and conviction in “Israel”. She has been very open about her false arrest – and conviction based on a confession of guilt produced by torture and rape. She left it off the naturalization forms because she thought the question only referred to arrest in the USA. The arrest question followed three other questions which specifically referenced the USA, and it was a reasonable conclusion that the next question (concerning arrest history) also referred to the USA.
The US Government knew of this “Israeli” arrest and conviction even before she made the naturalization request (2003), and has certainly known about it ever since. Why do you suppose it took 10 years to arrest and prosecute her for the supposed ‘lie’ on the forms? It’s all political payback for her activism for the Palestinian cause, and accusations that “Israel” forced her ‘confession’ by the use of rape and torture. (To accuse “Israel” in that way is of course “antisemitism”. 🙄 )
Jewish militants (a verbal redundancy) are howling for this woman’s head. An example is the notorious Pam Geller, who claims that Ms. Odeh is a terrorist, and that Obama will help Ms. Odeh, since Obama terrorists, and hates Jews.
The corporate media and all the Jewish blogs say Ms. Ogeh was “convicted in Israel for her role in the 1969 bombings of a supermarket, in which two people were killed, and a bombing of the British Consulate in Jerusalem, on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terrorist organization.”
“Convicted.”
As if Israel’s legal system is fair and just with regard to Palestinians.
A Fox News headline last year ran, “Convicted Palestinian terrorist found living in Evergreen Park.”
“Odeh was arrested at her apartment in the 9700-block of South Kedzie in Evergreen Park IL. Neighbors were shocked to learn of her past.”
It’s not only the Jews that want her head. The FBI does too. (Or is that another verbal redundancy?) On 24 Sep 2010 the FBI raided the homes of 23 anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. (The FBI claims that it had search warrants, but the warrants have been “indefinitely sealed.”) The FBI claimed to be looking for links to “terrorist groups” in Colombia and Palestine. The FBI targeted the activists because they had attended protests at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul Minnesota in 2008. Members of multiple other organizations were also targeted, including the Anti-War Committee in Minneapolis, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Arab American Action Network,, Palestine Solidarity Group – Chicago, and others. The Jews live in constant fear that these disparate organizations will form powerful coalitions, causing the BDS movement to gain strength. And so the Jews frequently order the US government to attack.
(The FBI has a long history of criminalizing social justice movements in the USA so that the movements cannot form coalitions with other communities or organizations. An example was the CONTELPRO operations against Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who the FBI accused of being “communists.” Students for a Democratic Society were targeted as “communists.” So was the Sanctuary Movement that supported Central American refugees from Reagan’s death squads in the 1980s. With the fall of the USSR, the “communists” became “terrorists.”)
One of the FBI’s victims in the 2010 sweeps was Hatem Abudayyah, executive director of the Arab American Action Network (AAAN). The assistant director at the time was Ms. Odeh, who then began communicating with a group known as the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.
The FBI raids were ordered by Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas (JEW) who was the prosecutor in the case of the Holy Land Five, the heads of the largest Muslim charity in the U.S. before 9/11. Jonas got the five men convicted of providing charity to children in the Gaza Death Camp, and sentenced to up to 65 years in prison.
However Mr. Jonas was unable to convict any of the anti-war activists he had targeted in the FBI’s nationwide sweep.
Frustrated, Mr. Jonas and Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox wrote to Israel, asking for any information on the people the FBI had arrested. BINGO. Ms. Odeh was a “convicted terrorist!” (Based on a confession extracted under torture in 1969.) Mr. Jonas had hit the jackpot. He had Ms. Odeh arrested for “immigration fraud” on 22 Oct 2013.
Ms. Odeh is being prosecuted in Detroit, because that is where the alleged immigration fraud allegedly happened in 2004. Her “trial” began on 4 Nov 2014, and is expected to last three weeks.
There’s no justice for Palestinians anywhere in the world. This was a show trial in a kangaroo court.
I do not believe that Mrs. Odeh bombed anything or anybody. Poor innocent woman.
The trial was quick, and its conclusion in a ‘guilty’ verdict was a fairly foregone conclusion since the judge prohibited major evidence for Rasmea’s innocence from being introduced in court, and overruled almost every objection made by the defense (and sustained almost every objection raised by the prosecution).
The thing is, Rasmea has never ‘hidden’ her arrest and conviction in “Israel”. She has been very open about her false arrest – and conviction based on a confession of guilt produced by torture and rape. She left it off the naturalization forms because she thought the question only referred to arrest in the USA. The arrest question followed three other questions which specifically referenced the USA, and it was a reasonable conclusion that the next question (concerning arrest history) also referred to the USA.
The US Government knew of this “Israeli” arrest and conviction even before she made the naturalization request (2003), and has certainly known about it ever since. Why do you suppose it took 10 years to arrest and prosecute her for the supposed ‘lie’ on the forms? It’s all political payback for her activism for the Palestinian cause, and accusations that “Israel” forced her ‘confession’ by the use of rape and torture. (To accuse “Israel” in that way is of course “antisemitism”. 🙄 )