Palestinian activist sentenced to 18 months for US immigration fraud

DETROIT — A Palestinian activist was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Thursday for immigration fraud for failing to tell US authorities that she had been imprisoned in Israel for a 1969 supermarket bombing that killed two people.

Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, 67, also will be deported after serving her sentence as a result of last year's conviction in a Detroit federal court of unlawful procurement of naturalization.

Before sentencing, Odeh had told US District Court Judge Gershwin Drain, "I'm not a terrorist, I'm not a bad woman."

But Drain said the offence is about lying under oath.

"We in this country expect people to tell the truth about things, especially under oath," Drain said.

Drain said Odeh's history does include some terrorist activities but also acknowledged her work in the United States in helping immigrant women in Chicago. She had faced as much as 10 years in prison.

Odeh lived almost two decades in the United States and served as associate director of a Chicago-area community organisation called the Arab American Action Network.

Federal prosecutors said she failed to reveal her criminal history when she immigrated from Jordan in 1995 and again when she was naturalised as a US citizen in 2004.