Michigan drops charges against pro-Palestinian campus protesters

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – State prosecutors dropped felony charges Monday against 7 radical accused of trespassing and resisting constabulary a twelvemonth agone during the break-up of a pro-Palestinian campy astatine the University of Michigan.

Attorney General Dana Nessel said she believed the cases were beardown but suggested her bureau was worn down by disapproval and different factors. She noted that a justice successful Washtenaw County inactive hadn't decided whether to nonstop the cases to a proceedings tribunal contempt aggregate hearings.

“Baseless and absurd allegations of bias person lone furthered this divide," said Nessel, a Democrat, who added that “distractions and ongoing delays person created a circus-like atmosphere.”

The campy connected the Diag, a accepted tract for field protests, was cleared by constabulary successful May 2024 aft a month. The assemblage said the campy had go a menace to safety, with overloaded powerfulness sources and unfastened flames.

Defense lawyer Amir Makled said Nessel was trying to crook escaped code into a crime.

“We sent a wide connection to some Lansing and to Washington, that the radical inactive rule, and that nationalist unit compels the regularisation of instrumentality to beryllium upheld,” Makled said Monday.

Protesters had demanded that the school’s endowment halt investing successful companies with ties to Israel. The assemblage insisted it has nary nonstop investments and less than $15 million placed with funds that mightiness see companies successful Israel.

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