Harvard University not cooperating with DA’s investigation into students charged with assault of Jewish classmate

The university’s refusal to cooperate with the D.A.’s office is unprecedented, attorneys say.

By Collin Anderson, The Washington Free Beacon

Harvard University has refused to cooperate with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office’s investigation into the assault of an Israeli business school student that occurred during a protest in October 2023.

That decision has delayed the ongoing criminal case against two of the students caught on camera accosting their Jewish classmate, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Assistant District Attorney Ursula Knight, who leads the office’s Civil Rights and High-Risk Victims Unit and is prosecuting two of the students who participated in the assault, during a Wednesday hearing admonished the university.

“Harvard police essentially refused to investigate,” she said, according to an attendee, adding that the school’s behavior “has been a shock to the Commonwealth.”

The two Harvard students, Elom Tettey-Tamaklo and Ibrahim Bharmal, were charged in connection with the case in May.

The pair was scheduled to be arraigned in June, court records show, but the hearings were postponed until September.

In a hearing on Wednesday, prosecutors again postponed the arraignment, preventing the case from moving forward until at least late October.

Both delays stem from Harvard’s refusal to cooperate with an investigation into the protest, the Suffolk County district attorney’s office told the Free Beacon.

“Harvard PD has not done a follow up investigation, and the defendants are seeking a pre-arraignment disposition,” Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office spokesman James Borghesani told the Free Beacon.

“Harvard was asked to do a follow up investigation and has not.”

The investigation that the district attorney’s office is seeking, Borghesani added, “would help to identify any additional perpetrators and may lead to inculpatory/exculpatory evidence and/or corroborate what we know.”

The university’s refusal to cooperate with the D.A.’s office is unprecedented, attorneys say.

A veteran attorney told the Free Beacon that he has never heard of police refusing an investigation request from prosecutors.

“Never in all my time have I ever heard of a police department refusing to investigate a case in which the D.A.’s office is asking for their assistance,” the attorney said. “That is unprecedented.”

Ifrah Law partner Jim Trusty echoed that assessment, telling the Free Beacon, “I have not seen it before.”

“What I think would be really fascinating here are the communications between the administration and the Harvard police,” Trusty said.

“Because it smells like political interference, and if that’s true—if they’re making a conscious decision to essentially protect anti-Semitism—number one, they’re not alone in the college scene, number two, it needs to be called out.”

Douglas Brooks, the attorney for the Israeli business student, said he was “shocked to learn today that Harvard has refused to cooperate with the District Attorney’s Office’s investigation.”

“Harvard has ignored our requests for nearly a year to investigate the incident at the administrative level,” Brooks said in a statement, “but we never thought it would go so far as to impede the D.A.’s Office’s investigation.”

A Harvard spokesman said it’s “unclear” what the district attorney’s office wants out of the follow-up investigation.

“As always, we value our partnership with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, and Harvard has cooperated fully throughout the DA’s office investigation,” the spokesman, Jason Newton, said in a statement.

“It remains unclear what further role they are asking HUPD to play.”

Newton said Harvard “turned over its investigative materials” in March and has since “provided additional information as recently as last Friday, including additional video.”

The “die-in” protest that led to the assault was held on October 18, 2023.

As the first-year business student walked through the protest, several activists, including Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal, shoved and accosted him as he filmed the demonstration on his phone.

Others used keffiyehs to block his view and hide their own faces as they shouted, “SHAME!”

Footage of the ordeal, which was first reported by the Free Beacon, prompted outrage from prominent Harvard Business School alumni, including Sen. Mitt Romney (R., Utah) and billionaire investor Seth Klarman.

In an October letter, they cited the incident as proof that university leaders have been “paralyzed” in the face of “expressions of hate and vitriol against Jews.”

Tettey-Tamaklo, a Harvard Divinity School student, at the time of the protest also served as a proctor, meaning that he lived among freshmen and helped support their “adjustment to Harvard.”

He was removed from that role in the wake of the incident.

Months before the protest, in March 2023, Tettey-Tamaklo penned an essay glorifying a Palestinian terrorist, Fatima Bernawi, who attempted to bomb a movie theater in Jerusalem in 1967.

Tettey-Tamaklo wrote approvingly of Bernawi’s plot, saying she “nearly carried out an attack on an Israeli establishment frequented by Occupation Forces (IOF)” and subsequently made “history as the first woman to be arrested by the IOF.”

“A true appreciation and celebration of underrepresented histories of Palestinian women like Bernawi—among others—cannot be relegated to the dusty corridors of history,” he concluded.

Bharmal, meanwhile, is a Harvard law student and a Harvard Law Review editor.

This summer, he worked as an immigration law clerk with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, which in a LinkedIn post thanked him for his “commitment to our clients.”

“A fun fact about Ibrahim? He is currently training to be a bollywood spin instructor…class sign-ups incoming,” the post read.

Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal were both charged with misdemeanor assault and battery and with violations of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, which prohibits attempts to “intimidate or interfere with … any other person in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him [or her] by the constitution.” They face up to 100 days in jail for each count.

Harvard has not revealed whether the charges—as well as a possible conviction—would impact the students’ graduation.

Harvard’s 2024-25 academic year formally began Tuesday. Early that morning, a Jewish student’s mezuzah was ripped from her door, a photo obtained by the Free Beacon shows.

“I find this deeply unnerving, for obvious reasons, and am additionally saddened because this mezuzah held deep significance for my family. I haven’t even started classes yet, and this has happened,” the student wrote in an email obtained by the Free Beacon.

Asked if university police are investigating the incident, Harvard did not respond. The school’s police department declined to comment.

antisemitic assaultHarvard UniversitySuffolk County District