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<font size="-2">January 31<sup>st</sup></font>
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<p><font size="-2"><strong>Media Contact:</strong> Hatem
Abudayyeh, Rasmea Defense Committee spokesperson</font></p>
<p><font size="+2"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://justice4rasmea.org/news/2017/01/31/defense-team-files-motion-to-dismiss-indictment/"><strong>Rasmea
Odeh Defense Team Files Motion to Dismiss Indictment</strong></a></font></p>
<p><em>Prosecutors “Vindictive” After Losing on Appeal</em></p>
<p>Today, the lawyers defending Palestinian American activist
Rasmea Odeh moved to dismiss the new indictment that was
brought against her in December 2016. The <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://justice4rasmea.org/assets/img/MDism-I-2-and-Brief-in-Support-of-Motion-to-Dismiss.pdf">motion
and supporting brief</a> argue that the government’s
“superseding indictment has substantially broadened the scope
of the trial and the evidence that will be relevant and at
issue.”</p>
<p>It also states that the new indictment, filed well beyond the
statute of limitations in immigration law, is so different
from the original 2013 indictment that it cannot be accepted
by the court. The statute of limitations for the alleged 2004
offense is 10 years. This new indictment tries to bring
fundamentally different charges against Rasmea.</p>
<p>Finally, Rasmea’s defense exposes the U.S. Attorney’s filing
of the superseding indictment as a retaliatory and vindictive
act. The conviction that the prosecutors won in court in 2014
was overturned in 2016 because the court violated Rasmea’s
right to a full defense. She was not allowed to present expert
testimony that she suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder as a result of the torture she suffered at the hands
of her Israeli captors in Palestine in 1969. Now the desperate
prosecution is trying to bring terrorism charges against her.
This is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to prejudice
the jury by using buzz words such as “terrorism” to paint an
unfavorable view of Rasmea.</p>
<p>When she was first falsely charged with a crime by the
Israelis in 1969, Rasmea had been arrested along with close to
500 others in Jerusalem. The occupation forces of the Israeli
military singled out Rasmea to force her into a confession,
through the use of physical, psychological, and sexual
torture. It is well known that Israeli documents from that
unlawful conviction were the ones used by the U.S. Attorney’s
office in Detroit to bring charges against her in 2013.
Rasmea’s attorneys had previously challenged the judge’s
allowance of these documents into evidence, since they were
procured by documented torture in another country.</p>
<p>During her first trial, Judge Gershwin Drain repeatedly
stated that he would not allow the retrying of Rasmea for the
allegations against her from 45 years earlier. The motion
filed today states, “Now that this Court has properly ruled
that the PTSD testimony is admissible, the government wants to
convert this trial into a political one about terrorism, and
the defendant’s acts and affiliations almost fifty years after
the fact.”</p>
<p>“We believe that we have a strong case,” said Bassem Kawar of
the Rasmea Defense Committee. “It is clear that the
prosecutors are desperately trying to levy ridiculous charges
at Rasmea, in hopes that they can confuse the jury and
distract them from the evidence of torture and PTSD that will
be presented at the new trial.”</p>
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