SAN DIEGO — Mosab Hassan Yousef said he will be killed if he is deported from the United States to the West Bank. The oldest son of one of Hamas' founders, he was an Israeli spy for a decade, and he abandoned Islam for Christianity, further marking him a traitor.
He is scheduled to plead his case Wednesday to an immigration judge in San Diego, four months after publishing memoirs that say he was one of the Shin Bet security agency's best assets and was dubbed The Green Prince, a reference to his Hamas pedigree and the Islamists' signature green color.
Yousef's case seems straightforward: Helping Israel find and kill members of the militant group would make him a marked man back home. Nearly two dozen members of Congress wrote Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano this week that Yousef would be in "grave danger" in the Middle East. Former CIA Director James Woolsey said his deportation would discourage other potential spies.
"It is not an exaggeration to say that such an action would set us back years in the war on terrorism," Woolsey wrote in a letter released by Yousef's attorney. "Mosab's deportation would be such an inhumane act it would constitute a blight on American history."