From The JC
A PhD student who bit a pro-Israel campaigner on the cheek at SOAS Israel Apartheid Week has been acquitted of assault.
Mohamed Abdelkarim was accused of biting Dean Gold on the face during a tussle on March 20 last year, while Mr Gold was filming a man at the event who was making obscene remarks about the Holocaust. After Mr Abdelkarim knocked the camera out of Mr Gold’s hand, both accused the other of throwing the first punch.
Mr Abdelkarim said the bite had been in self-defence, as he was immobilised by Mr Gold.
Both were originally charged with assault, but charges against Mr Gold were later dropped.
Three witnesses from the pro-Israeli campaign outside the university gave evidence, as did others attending the event.
District Judge James Henderson said political points of view of the witnesses had affected “what they saw and what how they interpreted it.”
But Kuwait-born Mr Abdelkarim, 44, a father-of-two and part time university lecturer, was “consistent and believable”, the judge said. He said: “I cannot be sure that Mr Abdelkarim was not acting in self-defence. The prosecution have not achieved that.”
A second charge of criminal damage to Mr Gold’s flip camera was also dismissed, as Judge Henderson said there was not proof cosmetic damage to the camera was not caused during the 10 months it was in police care.
The next step is usually to sue for libel.
UPDATE
A reader writes:
I was at the trial in the public gallery. I was not present at the incident.
It is totally beyond me how the judge came to this conclusion. The prosecution produced four witnesses who all testified that the attack was started by the biter. Yes, some of the details of their accounts varied, but this did happen nearly one year ago, and they were not all in the same spot, watching and waiting for it to happen. Their accounts basically matched up on all important points. The judge indeed said they were good witnesses.
The defence produced only one witness, other than the attacker, of any real relevance. Their other witnesses were all there for padding, adding only to a second line of argument they were pursuing, that the attack was ‘provoked’ by the presence and behaviour of the 4 pro-Israel individuals. They did not see the attack at all.
The one relevant witness did see the attack. The police took her account down the same day, in a car at the scene. She signed every page. But when it came to the hearing, she agreed that the report was false in at least one or two key places. The antisemite being filmed was not talking ‘politics’ as she had claimed, but ‘history’ about the Holocaust, even though she was unsure she could even hear him at all, and also the biter did not walk away from his victim before he bit him, only to be followed and attacked, as she originally claimed. She admitted these falsities after she was shown clear video footage in court which showed it to be false.
It was her testimony which the judge singled out as helping him decide that the biter had not been proved not to be acting in self defence. She had said he was attacked first, so despite her admission of making a false statement, he went with her version on that.
The court watched a video many times over of the biter swearing at his victim, snarling, shouting and swearing as he smashed the camera out of the victim’s hand. But that even was not ‘common assault, just a ‘reflex’, apparently.
Weird, no?
…
Abdelkarim claimed that Gold had him in a ‘bear hug’ from the front, with his arms wrapped around him all the way so that Gold’s fingers dug into his armpits via the back. That is to say, Gold’s right hand was digging into Abdelkarim’s right armpit, as Gold’s arm reached all the way round him, and the same with the left. This left Abdelkarim short of breath, and he was dizzy from a punch he claims he sustained, which reminded him of the concussion he once suffered playing American football.
To me, it seemed a physical impossibility fro the arms to have been arranged this way (as noted by the prosecution barrister), as Abdelkarim is not a slim man.
This apparently left Abdelkarim’s face right next to Gold’s, thus meaning he could only bite his way to freedom on Gold’s cheek.
