For those of you following the story of a Palestinian terrorist whose deportation earlier this month evoked three tearful Memphis Flyer columns, you may be interested in some additional information I’ve tracked down that appears to invalidate a few of the writer’s central points.

The Flyer’s John Branston’s columns appear here, here and here; reactions were posted to this blog here, here and here.

Branston initially reported that the man would be deported “and cannot return to the United States as part of the agreement under which two other charges were dropped.” And in his second and third columns, Branston wrote it this way: “in exchange for his plea, two other counts on his indictment were dropped and he will be immediately deported, never to return legally to the United States.”

On April 3, ABC24’s Adrienne Phillips filed a report that contradicts the Flyer claim that the terrorist could never return to the U.S.

[The man] will not be allowed back into the United States for a period of three years. After that, he will need approval from the U.S Attorney General’s Office.

When asked for evidence of this version of the plea deal, ABC24 referenced the DOJ’s press release, which states the following (emphasis mine):

The preparation of a presentence report was waived under the terms of the plea agreement and the court sentenced the defendant, who has been detained since his arrest, to a time served sentence followed by three years of supervised release. Special conditions of his supervised release are that he cooperate with his deportation from the United States and that he not be present in the U.S. during the time of his supervised release. Darwishahmad, who was required by the plea agreement to stay in custody until removed, signed a stipulated order of removal after his sentencing.

So it would appear that Branston got it wrong about the man being forever barred from reentry, at least in terms of this specific case; the next question, of course, is if this result makes the man ineligible to return to the U.S. under any circumstances further down the road.

I’m not an immigration attorney, but that would not seem to be the case based upon some cursory research. It would appear that the defendant could even reapply as a legal permanent resident. Crimes involving moral turpitude (CIMT) cause green card applicants to be “inadmissible,” but the applicant can apply for a waiver of inadmissibility:

A person awaiting adjustment of status who has been convicted of a CIMT may apply for a waiver of inadmissibility under INA § 212(h) if: 1) he is the spouse, parent, or child (of any age) of a US citizen or LPR and can prove that his removal from the United States would result in extreme hardship to the U.S. citizen or LPR relative;

And we know that the defendant could meet this waiver application criteria since the Flyer was so diligent in letting us know about his sobbing wife and their son.

So unless there was an omission in the DOJ’s press release, and unless we’ve missed something along with ABC24, it’s possible that the man could return to the U.S. in 2010 and eventually even obtain a green card.

Of course, that would mean filling out the dreaded I-485 form again. The horror!

The DOJ press release also reveals the other two counts of the indictment, which the Flyer had laboriously obscured.

Pursuant to the plea agreement, count one of the indictment, which charged that he had lied on the same I 485 by not disclosing his affiliation with Fattah and the PLO, and the fact that he had had been a Palestinian Authority military intelligence officer for approximately five years, will be dismissed. Likewise, Count three of the indictment, which alleged that he made a false statement to a Immigration and Naturalization officer (now Citizenship and Immigration Services) by lying about the nature of his Israeli conviction relating to the above described events will also be dismissed.

Branston attempts to diffuse these charges by putting a Palestinian Authority military intelligence officer in scare quotes, as a means of subtly casting suspicion on the government’s case.

Branston also interjects that “the time frame is not specified in court papers and was not stated during the court hearing,” and again, “the time frame is unclear,” which allows the Flyer to avoid acknowledging that the defendant’s terrorist activity is more recent than they let on, and that the defendant more than likely continued to engage in terrorist activity and/or affiliate himself with the terrorist group into his adult years, not just as an “impressionable Palestinian teenager.”

Sure, if we are to understand that the defendant was “recruited by members of Fattah” in 1990, and that he is 34 at present, that would make him only 17 when he “he tossed a grenade-like bomb at a bus of Israelis and threw a Molotov cocktail at Israeli soldiers.”

But it would also mean that in 1994 he was a 21-year-old Palestinian Authority military intelligence officer, which is a little harder for his apologists to swallow.

I must hand it to Branston for writing a very crafty series of human interest columns. As sly as he is in smearing this BS, though, we ain’t buying it.