Rasmieh Odeh, a former Michigan resident whose case drew national attention as a flashpoint in the Arab-Israeli dispute, pleaded guilty today to lying on immigration and naturalization forms about her conviction in Israel for a terror attack that killed two people.
Odeh, 69, of Chicago appeared in U.S. District Court in Detroit before Judge Gershwin Drain, entering a plea of guilty to procuring citizenship contrary to law, which has a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine. Under the plea agreement, Odeh will not serve any time in prison, be stripped of her U.S. citizenship and will be deported back to Jordan, where she lived before moving to the U.S.
Odeh had previously served five weeks in jail before being released as her case was appealed. She will be sentenced in August and not be allowed ever to reenter the U.S.
“The United States will never be a safe haven for individuals seeking to distance themselves from their pasts,” Steve Francis, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said in a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit. “When individuals lie on immigration documents, the system is severely undermined and the security of our nation is put at risk.”
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Supporters rally in Detroit for activist Rasmieh Odeh
During today's hearing, Judge Drain repeatedly pushed Odeh to admit she was guilty.
"Are you guilty or not guilty?" Drain asked her.
Odeh refused to answer, saying instead she signed a plea agreement.
"To sign this, it makes me guilty," she said.
Supporters and opponents rallied outside the courthouse.
"We love you Rasmieh, we support you Rasmieh, we defend you," Hatem Abudayyeh, of the Arab American Action Network in Chicago, said to supporters gathered on the steps of the courthouse, monitored by police.
On the other side of the courtroom steps was Dan Cutler, 65, of Ann Arbor, who held up a sign in support of the two young men killed in the 1969 bombing that Odeh was convicted of in Israel. Odeh denies she was involved in that terror attack saying she was forced to confess after being tortured by Israeli authorities.
"I hope for peace, but not taking responsibility for terrorist attacks against civilians is not the way forward," Cutler said, holding a sign that said: "Justice 4 Rasmea's murdered victims. I remember Eddie and Leon."
Odeh was convicted and imprisoned in Israel, accused of playing a role in the bombing of an Israeli supermarket that killed two civilians and an attempted attack on the British Consulate. Prosecutors in Detroit said it was done by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Odeh was later released as part of a prison swap.
Odeh had previously maintained she didn't disclose her terror convictions because of her post-traumatic stress disorder that she said was caused by torture by Israeli authorities.
But in the plea agreement she signed, Odeh said she made the false statements on her immigration and naturalization forms "intentionally and not as a result of any mistake, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or any other psychological issue or condition or for any innocent reason."
Odeh is an "icon in the terrorist world," Jonathan Tukel, Assistant U.S. Attorney who's chief of national security in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit, said earlier in court in 2015.
Odeh was not charged with terrorism in U.S. courts, only with immigration fraud for lying on government forms that ask immigrants if they have ever been convicted of a crime. Odeh was found guilty by a jury in 2014 in Detroit of the charge. The former resident of Jackson was then sentenced to 18 months in prison, and served five weeks behind bars, but the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned her conviction and sent the case back to Detroit, where she was set to get a new trial later this year.
Odeh left Jordan for the U.S. in 1995, first living in Michigan. She became a U.S. citizen in 2004 and was charged by prosecutors in 2013 in a case tied to raids involving anti-war activists.
The case was prosecuted in Detroit because she had entered the U.S. through Detroit and used to live in Michigan, where her late father once lived and ran a restaurant in Jackson.
Odeh is associate director of the Arab American Action Network in Chicago, which is a member of the Dearborn-based National Network for Arab American Communities, a project of ACCESS, a social services group in Dearborn formerly known as the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services.
Odeh drew increase attention this year when she was one of eight women who signed an open call in the Guardian, a British newspaper, calling for the "Day Without Women" protests.
Articles, including an op-ed in the New York Times, blasted her participation in the event, saying she was an extremist and a terrorist, while supporters praised her as a heroic advocate for Palestinians.
Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com or 313-223-4792. Follow him on Twitter @nwarikoo