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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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October 7, 2014
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Prosecution
Tries to Interfere With Plot to Interfere
by IPT News • Oct 7, 2014 at 4:44
pm
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Supporters of Rasmieh Odeh, a Palestinian woman convicted in a deadly
1969 Jerusalem grocery store bombing, are angry that federal prosecutors
want to curb their orchestrated campaign to influence jurors in her upcoming naturalization fraud trial.
Last week, prosecutors filed a motion asking the court to keep juror
identities anonymous during Odeh's trial, which is scheduled to begin Nov.
4 in Detroit. Hatem Abudayyeh, director of the Chicago-based Arab American
Action Network (AAAN), has led a campaign to pressure the U.S. Attorney to
drop the case against Odeh, and to persuade the judge to grant defense
motions.
Part of that campaign involves mass telephone call and letter-writing
campaigns. And part involves packing the courtroom with supporters of Odeh,
who is the AAAN's associate director.
"Influencing the opinions of jurors and potential jurors through
extra-judicial means is obviously improper," prosecutors argue in
their motion, "and ... almost certainly criminal." Abudayyeh, the
motion claims, told U.S. Marshals "that he intends to be
contentious with their efforts to maintain order and proper decorum"
during the trial.
Odeh supporters reacted angrily, calling the motion "a bizarre and desperate
move" and "a clumsy attempt at intimidation" which threatens
civil liberties.
"In any event, at no time have we ever tried to improperly
influence a jury. Not once," a statement from the "Rasmea Defense
Committee" said.
But prosecutors point to an interview Abudayyeh gave last month in which
he said packing the court with Odeh supporters and organizing daily rallies
outside the courthouse "could potentially ... sway the opinions of the
jurors."
That echoes what Abudayyeh said during a July 31 rally, after a more
than a dozen people boarded a bus from Chicago to Detroit to pack the gallery
during a pre-trial hearing.
"That jury needs to also see that courtroom filled every single day
of that trial."
Defense attorney Michael Deutsch told supporters that the tactic works.
"You are bearing witness, and this is the critical factor in all trials
of this kind. So your coming here and getting on a bus and driving all
these hours makes a difference," he said. "And we appreciate that
so much because that's so important to our case."
A jury, the prosecution argues, is supposed "to make its
decision based only on evidence presented at trial and nothing else."
They also want jurors to meet each day at a remote location and be driven
to court together to avoid undue influence from the protests.
Odeh came to the United States 20 years ago. In filling out visa and
naturalization forms, she failed to disclose her conviction for helping plant
bombs in the Jerusalem grocery store, an attack which killed two Hebrew
University students. That is the basis for the charges against her.
Her case has drawn support from Islamist groups, including American Muslims for Palestine and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
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