A former Paleostinian terrorist living in reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown
... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,...
has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for failing to disclose her convictions for bombings in Israel when she applied to be a US citizen.
Rasmieh Odeh appeared Thursday in bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit
... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang...
's federal court, backed by dozens of supporters. She will remain free while she appeals.
Odeh will likely be deported to Jordan upon her release, the Chicago Sun Times reported.
Judge Gershwin Drain said Odeh was a terrorist decades ago but has changed her ways. Nevertheless, he said, she lied.
Odeh helps run Chicago's Arab American Action Network. In 2004, she answered "no" on her citizenship application when asked about past convictions. She says she believed the questions were about US crimes.
Prosecutors requested a sentence of five to seven years for lying on the form, well above the federal sentencing guideline of 12 to 18 months.
"A light sentence in this case would be a signal to anyone who has fought overseas for ISIS or a similar organization that there is not much risk in coming to the United States, hiding one's past and seeking citizenship," prosecutors Jonathan Tukel and Mark Jebson wrote.
Odeh was convicted in Israel of two bombings in Jerusalem in 1969 and was sentenced to life in prison. One of the bombings killed Hebrew University students Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner at a grocery store.
Odeh, 67, said Israeli authorities tortured her into confessing.
Israel released Odeh in 1979 in a prisoner exchange with the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine... Paleostinian Marxist movement, founded in 1967. It is considered a terrorist organization by more than 30 countries including the U.S., European Union, Australia, Canada, and Antarctica. The PFLP's stated goal is the establishment of a socialist State in Paleostine. They pioneered armed aircraft hijackings in the late 60s and early 70s...
, the group behind the bombings.
Odeh entered the US in 1995 and applied for citizenship in Detroit in 2004.
Odeh supporter Hatem Abudayyeh condemned the judge's rulings and the case as a whole.
"Since both defense motions challenged how Drain conducted the trial, it came as no surprise," Hatem Abudayyeh of the Rasmea Defense Committee said in a statement after her conviction last month. "We know that the conviction was a travesty of justice, and that Judge Drain's rulings made it impossible for the jury to give Rasmieh a fair shake."