DETROIT, MI -- Rasmea Odeh, a Palestinian activist convicted of lying on immigration and naturalization papers about a terrorist conviction from her past, spent weeks in Detroit during a federal trial that ended with her sentencing in March.

Odeh Immigrated to the U.S. through Detroit in 1995 and was found guilty of lying on her Visa application, and then naturalization papers nine years later.

Odeh never mentioned her 10-year prison stint in Israel after being convicted in connection with two 1969 bombings, one that killed two Hebrew University students, or her affiliation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, one of the original members of Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

She was sentenced to life in prison for the Israel bombings, but released early in a 1980 prisoner swap. At the time, she moved to Amman, Jordan, according to court documents.

Odeh was born in Lifta, a small village on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Israel in 1947. The Palestinian population was driven out by the Arab-Jewish fighting between 1947 and 1948.

The 67-year-old, who now lives in Chicago where she runs the Arab Women's Committee, dedicated to helping Palestinian immigrants transition to life in the U.S., was sentenced to 18 months in prison and deportation for her conviction.

U.S. federal Judge Gershwin Drain delayed the sentence while Odeh appeals. She served five weeks in jail before being released.

Odeh's attorney, Michael Deutsch, filed a brief in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Tuesday outlining why Odeh's conviction should be overturned.

The brief claims Odeh was raped and tortured by the Israeli soldiers over the 3-week period, which led to her false confession.

Odeh was forbidden from testifying in the Detroit federal court about the torture.or her proclaimed innocence; the testimony of a a torture expert was forbidden; and the court allowed 45-year-old biased documents from the Israeli army into evidence, which Deutsch says resulted in an unfair trial.

"The prosecution's case against Ms. Odeh was based in substantial part upon 45 year-old documents created by a military occupation legal system imposed on the Palestinian people living in the West Bank region, after invasion, and conquest by Israel in 1967," Deutsch says in his brief. These documents should have been excluded because "the military judicial process imposed on the people of the West Bank was based on the systematic use of torture, forced confessions, and other procedures wholly inconsistent with Due Process and U.S. principles of Fundamental Fairness."

The brief also argues Odeh has recently been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, stemming from the abuse and torture in Israel, which "blocked her from understanding" the time frame of the questions in applications and resulting in her false answers.

Odeh and her attorney plan to further explain the brief and appeals process via a live stream available online at 11 a.m. Thursday.