The #Justice4Rasmea campaign to free Rasmea Odeh announced that her legal team filed a motion to dismiss the new indictment brought against Rasmea in December 2016 after her successful appeal. Excerpt below:
“Today, the lawyers defending Palestinian American activist Rasmea Odeh moved to dismiss the new indictment that was brought against her in December 2016. The motion and supporting brief 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.”
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.
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.”
