Rasmea Odeh was convicted in Israel of the 1969 bombing of the Super Sol supermarket in Jerusalem, in which Hebrew University students Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner were killed, in addition to the attempted bombing of the British Consulate.
Rasmea served 10 years of a life sentence before being released in a prisoner exchange in 1979 for an Israeli soldier captured in Lebanon. Rasmea later immigrated to the United States, where she has made Chicago her home since the mid-1990s.
In November 2014, Rasmea was convicted in federal court in Detroit of falsely procuring naturalization, by concealing her Israeli convictions and incarceration. Sentencing is March 12, 2015.
The evidence supporting both the Israeli and Detroit convictions is overwhelming and from multiple sources, as I demonstrated in Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud. Rasmea’s claim that she confessed to the bombing only after several weeks of sexual torture was contradicted by the fact that she confessed one day after arrest, and by corroborating evidence including a filmed interview years later with a co-conspirator.
Rasmea has become a hero to the anti-Israel activist community in Chicago and nationally, with fundraisers and national events in her honor, as well as a letter writing campaign to the Court.
The Prosecution just filed its Sentencing Memorandum (full embed below), seeking an upward adjustment from the sentencing guidelines (15-21 months) based upon Rasmea falsely testifying in court about her innocence in the supermarket bombing and defiance of the Judge’s Order that she not testify in court about supposed torture since the basis of the conviction was irrelevant to the immigration charge.
That Sentencing Memorandum contains devastating new details and evidence of Rasmea’s complicity in the bombing and her close ties to leading terrorist figures, including new video links. It will be interesting to see how the Judge reacts to this evidence, since after a pre-trial hearing on Rasmea’s claim of PTSD (which he rejected as a defense), the Judge found that Rasmea’s claims of confession after torture were “credible.” But the Judge did not have all the evidence, and the evidence shows that Rasmea attempted to dupe the court.
These details from the Sentencing Memorandum will be highlighted in an update to this post.
The Defense Sentencing Memorandum, seeking no jail time or time served, has been added below.
UPDATE: Some excerpts from the Prosecution Sentencing Memorandum revealing independent corroborating evidence of Rasmea’s guilt in the supermarket bombing, not previously addressed by us in posts:
Rasheda Obideh, the third individual, was not in Women in Struggle and was never arrested for her role in the offense. However, she appeared in another video, made in 1993, Tell Your Tale Little Bird. Rasheda Obideh discussed what she terms “the operation on the Supersol.” See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdkoxBjKM1Q at 24:28 et seq. Obideh stated: “We were tempted to perform military attacks against occupants. That is why me and my friends Aisha and Rasmieh, the three of us participated in one operation.” Rasheda Obideh then states that she regrets “the operation” not because of its nature, i.e., attacking civilians, but because there was not enough preparation by the conspirators to make sure that others would carry on after them. Id. at 24:55-25:34. That segment is immediately followed by Aisha Odeh discussing “supersol and also the British Consulate in Jerusalem,” followed by defendant Rasmieh Odeh stating “I was captured along with Aisha Ouda.” Id. at 25:34-25:47. Thus, the videos evidence two of the three participants directly admitting the guilt of the three of them….Incidentally, the video recitations of the events are precisely what defendant Rasmieh Odeh admitted in her statement to Israeli authorities….And finally, there can be no doubt of defendant Odeh’s valued membership and participation in the PFLP, a designated terrorist organization. The PFLP, which engaged in spectacular acts of terrorism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, named at least two of the units involved in such terrorism the “Task Force RasmiehOdeh.”In 1969, a PFLP terrorist named Leila Khaled and others hijacked a TWA plane and ordered it to Damascus, Syria. See http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/palestinian-resistance-icon-leila-khaled-tour-south-africa; see also http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/353779/Leila-Khaled-Hijacker/overview. On September 6, 1970, the PFLP conducted four successful and one unsuccessful simultaneous hijackings of aircraft, diverting three aircraft to a remote airstrip called Dawson’s Field in the Jordanian desert. The failed hijacking was Leila Khaled’s second attempt to hijack airliners, that time an Israeli El Al plane. After the hijacking was foiled, the plane landed in London, and Leila Khaled was arrested. See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/hijacked/maps/map_txt_01.html. Upon her arrest, she reportedly stated to British authorities “I am the leader of the hijack. My name is Leila Khaled and a member of the PFLP and from the unit of Rasmieh Odeh, a Palestinian woman prisoner.” See https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/heading-to-haifa-want-to-see-myhome-up-close-who-is-leila-khaled/….PFLP spokesmen have made clear that the coordinated hijackings were undertaken to obtain hostages for use in bartering the release of PFLP prisoners held in Israel, such as Rasmieh Odeh. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH 6e1FNSUxo, at 13:10-13:25. Thus, it is not clear if the PFLP referred to the hijackers as “Task Force Rasmieh Odeh” because she was the principal target whose release was sought or if it was in honor of her role in bombing the Supersol the previous year. Either way, it is clear that she held an exalted role within the organization, and it also is clear that the PFLP requested her release in 1979 when she was freed in a prisoner exchange.And if any further emphasis need be placed on defendant’s history, it is provided by the final scene in Tell Your Tale Little Bird. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdkoxBjKM1Q at 1:28:25-1:30:08. In that scene, set to classical music, admitted terrorists Leila Khaled, Aisha Odeh, Rasheda Obideh and others sit downwith defendant Rasmieh Odeh for cookies and coffee in what can only be referred to as a terrorist reunion to be filmed for posterity. Thus, defendant Odeh began having such meetings with unrepentant terrorists not later than 1993, when the film was made, two years before she immigrated to the United States. She continued to have such meetings at least until 2004, when Women in Struggle was made, after she had lived in the United States for many years and during which time she applied for and became a United States citizen.
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Rasmieh Odeh Case – Prosecution Sentencing Memorandum
Rasmieh Odeh Case – Defense Sentencing Memorandum w Out Exhibits
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