Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has dropped charges against seven student protesters from the University of Michigan, citing legal delays and controversies surrounding the US case, which she said has become a \u201clightning rod of contention\u201d.<\/p>\n
The decision on Monday puts an end to the case that started in May 2024 when the students, who pleaded not guilty, were charged with trespassing and resisting a police officer while attending a pro-Palestinian campus protest<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe feel vindicated that the case was dismissed,\u201d said Jamil Khuja, a member of the defence team for the students. \u201cThese individuals committed no crime whatsoever. They were exercising their right to protest and engage in political speech on public property.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite dropping the charges and growing criticism of the case, Nessel on Monday defended her decision to pursue felony charges against the students, saying \u201ca reasonable jury would find the defendants guilty of the crimes alleged\u201d.<\/p>\n However, Nessel added in a statement that she dropped the charges nearly a year later because she did not believe \u201cthese cases to be a prudent use of my department\u2019s resources\u201d.<\/p>\n While hundreds of students were arrested during the wave of pro-Palestine campus encampments that swept the United States last year amid Israel\u2019s war on Gaza<\/a>, most were immediately released.<\/p>\n The case in Michigan gained national attention and became symbolic of the nationwide crackdown on pro-Palestine demonstrations, with Palestinian rights advocates arguing that the Nessel case was an attack on freedom of speech and assembly.<\/p>\n Defence lawyers for the accused had filed motions for Nessel to recuse herself from the case, citing accusations of bias \u2013 assertions that the attorney general dismissed as \u201cbaseless and absurd\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThese distractions and ongoing delays have created a circus-like atmosphere to these proceedings,\u201d the attorney general said in her statement.<\/p>\n Khuja, the defence lawyer, said the team was \u201cabsolutely confident\u201d of winning the case, either by judicial dismissal or not-guilty jury verdict, and criticised Nessel\u2019s characterisation of the pretrial proceedings as \u201ccircus-like\u201d as untrue.<\/p>\n He said requesting Nessel\u2019s removal from the case was warranted, adding that the charges should have been brought by the county and not the state\u2019s attorney general, according to Michigan\u2019s prosecution procedures.<\/p>\n Free speech \u2018under attack\u2019<\/p>\n To underscore the alleged bias, the defence lawyer also noted that weeks before filing the charges last year, Nessel had clashed with Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, \u201cthe only Palestinian in Congress\u201d, for defending the chant \u201cfrom the river to the sea<\/a>, Palestine will be free\u201d, which has been used by student protesters.<\/p>\n Soon after Nessel charged the students, Tlaib accused the attorney general of \u201cpossible biases\u201d within her agency, underscoring that other protest movements did not face a similar legal crackdown.<\/p>\n