Palestinian-American activist sentenced to prison for immigration fraud

A Palestinian-American activist was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Thursday for immigration fraud after failing to tell U.S. authorities that she had been imprisoned in Israel for a 1969 supermarket bombing that killed two people.

Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, 67, will be deported after serving her sentence as a result of last year's conviction in a Detroit federal court of unlawful procurement of naturalization.

Odeh served 10 years in Israeli prison for the bombing before being released in a prisoner swap with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). She had said Israeli authorities tortured and raped 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.

Before sentencing, Odeh told Drain, "I'm not a terrorist, I'm not a bad woman."

But Drain said the offense is about lying under oath.

"We in this country expect people to tell the truth about things, especially under oath," Drain said.

Drain said Odeh's history does include some “terrorist” activities but also acknowledged her work in the United States in helping immigrant women in Chicago.

Odeh lived almost two decades in the United States and served as associate director of a Chicago-area community organization called the Arab American Action Network.

Federal prosecutors said she failed to reveal her criminal history when she immigrated from Jordan in 1995 and again when she was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2004.

Wire services