Accused Terrorist Pleads Not Guilty to Lying to Immigration Officials

A woman accused of failing to tell U.S. immigration authorities about her role in a deadly bombing in Israel has pleaded not guilty in her first court appearance in Detroit.

Rasmieh Yousef Odeh became a naturalized citizen in 2004. Nearly a decade later, she's charged with covering up her conviction in an attack that killed two people at a Jerusalem market in 1969. Israeli authorities have said the attacks were planned by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Odeh lives suburban Evergreen Park, but the case is filed in Detroit federal court because that's where the 66-year-old gained U.S. citizenship. If convicted, she could face up to 10 years in federal prison, deportation back to Jordan and the removal of her U.S. citizenship.

Odeh was released on bond. She declined to comment outside court. She is associate director at the Arab American Action Network, a Chicago-area group.

Odeh's supporters marched outside the courthouse with signs that said "stop anti-Arab racism."

The PFLP rose to prominence with a series of hijackings and other attacks in the 1960s and 1970s that killed scores of people. These days, it's a small militant Palestinian faction. The group's leader, Ahmad Saadat, is in jail for his role in the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister in 2001.