Controversial Palestinian Activist Accepts Deportation In Plea Deal
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A Palestinian-born activist who spent 10 years in an Israeli prison on a terrorism conviction before moving to the United States and gaining citizenship pleaded guilty on Tuesday to immigration fraud, agreeing to be deported rather than sent to prison.
Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, 69, is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 17 and subsequently stripped of her U.S. citizenship and expelled from the country.
Odeh, who once served as the associate director for the Arab American Action Network in Chicago and was involved last month in organizing rallies opposing President Donald Trump’s policies, said she did not know yet where she would go. Her attorney told U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain that Jordan had agreed to take her in.
“This is very unjust, very wrong,” Odeh muttered, wiping tears and embracing dozens of supporters as she left the courtroom. “That they can just send you away from this country after 24 years that I’ve been living here, it is wrong.”
The case revolves around the 10 years Odeh spent in an Israeli prison, after confessing to a 1969 supermarket bombing in Israel that killed two people.
Odeh had said her confession to the bombing was the result of torture.
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