A University graduate student could face charges after being arrested last month during a demonstration in the West Bank.
- Paul Wong
- Israeli police subdue University graduate student Andrew Clarno during a protest in Jerusalem Aug. 11.<br><br>AP PHOTO
Israeli police allege Andrew Clarno, 26, resisted arrest and attacked an officer in Jerusalem Aug. 11, said David Roet, deputy consul general at the Israeli Consulate in Chicago. Roet said police began arresting demonstrators because they were blocking roads. He had no information on whether Israeli prosecutors would level charges, but said it is “unlikely” Clarno would face jail time if convicted.
Clarno, a doctoral candidate in sociology, maintained his innocence. He alleges police brutalized demonstrators.
“I did not physically or in any other way assault or even threaten to assault a police officer or any other individual. I was never given orders to disperse and I did not resist arrest,” he said in an e-mail. “The violence that day was perpetrated by the Israeli police not by the protesters.”
The demonstration was held in front of the Orient House, the unofficial headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which had been closed two days earlier by the Israeli government. Roet said the house”s closure was the result of suicide bombings.
Clarno is free on the agreement that he not return to the Orient House and is available for further police questioning. He said he has not been contacted by police since a questioning two weeks ago, and that his lawyer will request the case be dropped when he leaves the country.
He said he plans to spend the next eight to nine months conducting research in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon. Clarno left Ann Arbor in July after spending the last three years here.