PALESTINIAN SENTENCED IN US TO 18 MONTHS FOR BEING EX-DETAINEE

Detroit, 24 Jumadil Awwal 1436/15 March 2015 (MINA) –  A US federal court on Thursday (12/3) sentenced Palestinian activist Rasmiya Odeh to 18 months in prison on a charge that she had been an ex-detainee in an Israeli jail.

The district court judge in Detroit stated in his verdict that Odeh (67), obtained US citizenship illegally when she applied for a visa without mentioning that she had been a former prisoner in Israel on a charge of her involvement in terror attacks that killed two Israelis in 1967, Palestinian Information Center (PIC) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting, Saturday (14/3).

The judge then charged the Palestinian activist with immigration fraud and ordered her deportation once she completed her sentence, but he said that she was free on bail pending a scheduled appeal.

Decades ago, Odeh was jailed for life by the Israeli occupation on allegations of her involvement in two bombings in Jerusalem, including one that killed two Israeli settlers in a market.

10 years later, Israel released her along with 75 other Palestinian prisoners as part of a swap deal.

Odeh, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was born in 1948 in Lifta village, west of occupied Jerusalem.

In 1995, she migrated to Jordan and then to the US, where she became a citizen long years ago before she was recently arrested by the authorities in the country following frenzied media incitement by Zionist groups. (T/P006/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)