Harvard students must complete anger management for assaulting Jewish student during pro-Palestinian protest

Rick Sobey, Boston Herald on Apr 29, 2025

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BOSTON — A pair of Harvard students must complete anger management and perform community service for assaulting a Jewish student during a pro-Palestinian protest, a Boston judge has ruled.

Harvard graduate students Elom Tettey-Tamaklo and Ibrahim Bharmal have been ordered to perform 80 hours of community service and complete an anger management program for the October 2023 assault of a student during a protest on the Harvard Business School campus.

The 28-year-old grad students were also ordered to attend an eight-hour class on conflict resolution.

Back on Oct. 18, 2023 — in the aftermath of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel — Tettey-Tamaklo and Bharmal surrounded Jewish student Yoav Segev as he walked through a pro-Palestinian protest on the business school campus.

They covered his head with keffiyehs and shouted “exit” at Segev, the son of Israeli diplomats. They and others surrounded Segev, jostled and assaulted him, chanted “shame, shame, shame” and blocked Segev’s path.

“After they assaulted and traumatized me, they refused to take any responsibility for their actions,” Segev wrote in his victim impact statement. “They could have reached out to me to apologize. They did just the opposite. They took their case to the media, slandering me in the process. They publicly declared that they were ‘proud of their actions,’ failed to cooperate with law enforcement by identifying their fellow assailants, and have failed to show an ounce of remorse or take any accountability whatsoever.

“Their assault was not a rash incident at a bar,” Segev continued. “Their actions and public commentary afterwards demonstrate that the defendants believe they were acting in a private security capacity and are above the law, using force to determine who can and cannot be in public spaces—deciding to exclude the visibly Jewish student.”

Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden said every resident of Suffolk County has the right to move freely, the right of free expression, and the right to be free from physical harm, and that his office will act when any of those rights are criminally impeded.

“Mr. Segev is an entirely innocent victim,” Hayden said. “He did nothing wrong leading up to this incident and nothing wrong during this incident. He had a Constitutional right to walk across the campus of his school without being accosted or assaulted. As such, we were prepared to go to trial to seek accountability from the two defendants and justice for Mr. Segev.”

The judge’s ruling in this case involving Harvard students comes as the university and the Trump administration continue to battle amid a federal antisemitism investigation into the campus.

Harvard recently rejected a list of demands from the Trump admin, leading to the feds freezing billions in funding to the university. Harvard has since sued the Trump admin in Boston federal court.

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