Activist Rasmea Odeh to leave U.S.

Detroit — A Chicago Palestinian activist who didn’t disclose her time in an Israeli prison when she got U.S. citizenship has agreed to plead guilty and leave the country.

Rasmea Odeh was scheduled to face a second trial in Detroit after winning an appeal of her 2014 conviction. She was to be allowed to show she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and that was why she didn’t disclose her past when she was interviewed in Detroit during the citizenship process in 2004. Federal Judge Gershwin Drain didn’t allow the evidence during Odeh’s trial.

In 2014, she was convicted of lying to get U.S. citizenship and sentenced to 18 months in prison. She’s been free during her appeal.

But a member of her legal team, William Goodman, said Thursday she’s agreed to plead guilty on April 25 in exchange for no time in prison.

Goodman said Odeh is 69 years old, and another trial would be “grinding” for her.

She was convicted of two bombings in Israel in 1969 but said she was tortured into confessing. Israel released Odeh in a prisoner exchange in 1979.