Rasmea Odeh: Guilty for Resistance

Rasmea Odeh was found guilty of lying on immigration documents based on a confession obtained through Israeli torture.


In a travesty of justice, Rasmea Odeh today was found guilty of one count of Unlawful Procurement of Naturalization.

For over a year, Rasmea, her supporters, and her legal team have been battling this unjust government prosecution, saying from the start that the immigration charge was nothing but a pretext to attack this icon of the Palestine liberation movement. And although there is real anger and disappointment in the jury’s verdict, it was known as early as October 27 that she would not get a full and fair trial.

On that day, Judge Gershwin Drain made a number of rulings that made her defense virtually impossible. The government’s indictment stated that she had unlawfully gained US citizenship because she had allegedly answered a number of questions falsely on her visa application in 1995 and her naturalization application in 2004. She had been in this country as a lawful permanent resident for almost 20 years, and a citizen for over nine, when she was arrested on October 22, 2013.

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