Rasmea Odeh, a Palestinian who was convicted of a terrorist attack in Israel that killed two people and also helped plan the Day Without a Woman strike, agreed to leave the United States in a plea deal to avoid jail time.
Odeh served ten years in an Israeli prison before she was freed in a "prisoner exchange." She was able to come to the United States in 2004 after hiding her crimes in immigration documents. Odeh was charged with immigration fraud in 2014, but she said she was suffering from PTSD when she filled out her application.
Odeh was allowed to go through another trial after an appeals court ruled there should be an expert witness testifying that she had PTSD.
Odeh will plead "guilty to unlawful procurement of naturalization," the Washington Times reported on Friday. She will avoid 18 months in prison by pleading guilty to this charge.
Cornell law professor William Jacobson weighed in on her court case.
"She was convicted of immigration fraud in the first trial, and would have been convicted in the re-trial," Jacobson wrote in an email to the Examiner.
"Her new defense that PTSD caused her to falsely answer simple questions on her naturalization papers about past convictions and imprisonment was laughable," he continued. "Rasmea and her supporters invented an alternate universe based on hatred of Israel, but alternate universes tend not to do very well in court when faced with real world evidence."
Jacobson added that while Odeh's supporters have claimed this is a victory for her, it is actually the opposite.
"This is a devastating defeat not only for Rasmea, but for the anti-Israel activists backing her. By taking a plea, she sold out her supporters, just like she sold out dozens of her fellow terrorists when she confessed to the deadly supermarket bombing in 1969," Jacobson wrote.
Before she is set to leave the United States, she will speak at the conference of Jewish Voices for Peace in Chicago, Illinois.