Rasmea Odeh
Rasmea Yousef Odeh (in Arabic رسمية يوسف عودة; born 1948), also known as Rasmea Yousef, Rasmieh Steve, and Rasmieh Joseph Steve,[3] is a Palestinian Jordanian and former American citizen who was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) convicted by Israeli military courts for involvement in a 1969 Jerusalem supermarket bombing which killed two young civilians.
[4] After her release to Jordan, she immigrated in 1990 to the United States, became a U.S. citizen, and served as associate director at the Arab American Action Network in Chicago, Illinois.
[10][11] Odeh's counsel maintained she did not receive a "full and fair trial" because the judge ruled as irrelevant her testimony that her 1969 confession in Israel had been extracted by torture.
"[14][15] Odeh was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison in March 2015, stripped of her US citizenship, and set for deportation to Jordan after serving her time.
She "became convinced that military action was more important than social or political work" after the Six-Day War, throwing stones at Israelis and training to fire guns.
[22] In December 1968 Odeh left for Lebanon to register at Beirut Arab University, intending to study political economy and train with the PFLP there,[22] and then for Amman, where Wadie Haddad gave her a letter of introduction to Bashir al-Khairi.
The intention was not to hurt people but to remind the world that Palestinians existed, to reassert ourselves and to show that we couldn't accept the occupation and Western connivance in silence.
[5][25][28][29] The PFLP took credit for both bombings[27][30] and Israeli police found extensive bomb-making materials, grenades, explosive bricks, receipts from the supermarket, and a manifesto in Odeh's room.
[31] Odeh was arrested in March 1969, confessed to investigators, and in 1970 was convicted and sentenced by an Israeli military court to life in prison for her perpetration of the two terrorist bombings in Jerusalem and for her involvement in the PFLP, an illegal organization.
[34] She also did not deny her involvement in Women in Struggle (2004), instead reminiscing with Aisha Odeh about their respective roles, and these statements correspond precisely to her 1969 confession.
[36][37] The U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Michigan said: "An individual convicted of a terrorist bombing would not be admitted to the United States if that information was known at the time of arrival.
[6][36] Jennifer Williams, the Detroit immigration officer who interviewed Odeh in 2004, testified that she makes a point of clarifying to applicants that the question applies to convictions "anywhere in the world.
He stated that his financial ties "could be perceived as establishing a reasonably objective inference of a lack of impartiality in the context of the issues presented in this case.
"[38] She had her bail revoked and was taken into custody upon the conclusion of her trial, as the judge found her to be a flight risk, and was incarcerated in Port Huron, Michigan.
[47][31] On February 13, 2015, Judge Drain denied Odeh's request that he either overturn the federal jury's conviction of her or grant her a new trial, ruling that her argument lacked legal merit.
[16][18] On February 25, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit unanimously vacated her conviction of an immigration violation, sending the case back to Judge Drain to reconsider the admissibility of expert testimony.
[55] On March 19, 2019, she was banned from speaking at a public meeting marking International Women's Day in Berlin after German officials revoked her Schengen visa.
