Harvard students ordered to enter pretrial diversion program over assault of Israeli classmate

The Israeli student was attempting to walk through an Oct. 18, 2023, “die-in” protest assailing Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Hamas when keffiyeh-clad individuals surrounded him, shouting, “SHAME!”

By Collin Anderson, The Washington Free Beacon

The two Harvard University students who faced criminal charges for assaulting an Israeli classmate during an anti-Israel “die-in” protest will take an in-person anger management class and perform 80 hours of community service as part of a pretrial diversion program, court filings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.

The two students, Elom Tettey-Tamaklo and Ibrahim Bharmal, sought the program, and a Suffolk County judge approved it during a Monday hearing.

Their attorneys requested only 40 hours of community service, but the judge sided with the prosecutor Ursula Knight’s call for 80 hours. Knight also called for the anger management class as well as a statement from Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal admitting fault. The judge did not include the latter request in his order.

The development means that the long-running ordeal will soon come to an end, with Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal scheduled to appear in court for a “Pretrial diversion completion” hearing on July 25, according to court filings.

That hearing will take place nearly two years after Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal were shown shoving and accosting an Israeli student at Harvard Business school in a video first reported by the Free Beacon.

The Israeli student was attempting to walk through an Oct. 18, 2023, “die-in” protest assailing Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Hamas when keffiyeh-clad individuals surrounded him, shouting, “SHAME!”

The video prompted criticism from prominent Harvard Business School alumni, including former Utah senator Mitt Romney (R., Utah) and billionaire investor Seth Klarman, who cited the incident in a 2023 letter that accused Harvard of failing to protect its Jewish students.

Harvard, however, remained quiet about the case, even as Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal faced charges last May.

Both students remained in good standing with the school in the wake of the die-in, and both were expected to graduate in May 2025, Bharmal from the law school and Tettey-Tamaklo from the divinity school.

As their assault case progressed, Harvard did not say whether it would award Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal degrees if the proceedings were ongoing or if they were convicted.

The school did not immediately respond to a request for comment. If Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal complete the pretrial diversion program, their records will not contain criminal convictions.

Bharmal, a former Harvard Law Review editor, received support from both Harvard Law School and the left-wing legal community as the case unfolded.

Last June, around the same time he was charged, Bharmal worked as an immigration law clerk in the Washington, D.C.’s public defender’s office, the Free Beacon reported.

Then, in April, Harvard Law School published a blog post in which Bharmal fondly reminisced on his time at the “Crimmigration Clinic,” a law school course in which students work on federal immigration cases.

The case may have concluded sooner if not for Harvard, which refused to cooperate with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s probe into the “die-in,” according to the DA’s office.

The office requested Harvard’s police department conduct a “follow up investigation” aimed at identifying “any additional perpetrators” as well as “inculpatory/exculpatory evidence.”

Harvard declined, the DA’s office told the Free Beacon last year, prompting county prosecutor Knight to admonish the school in court.

“Harvard police essentially refused to investigate,” she said during a September hearing, calling Harvard’s behavior “a shock to the commonwealth.”

The “die-in” came at a very different time for Harvard, one in which Claudine Gay was still the school’s president and Donald Trump was not yet the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nominee.

It has since become part of the Trump administration’s criticisms of Harvard and its response to campus anti-Semitism.

The administration’s April 11 letter demanding a series of policy changes at the school included a call to permanently expel “the students involved in the October 18 assault of an Israeli Harvard Business School student.”