Grand jury indicts man accused of stabbing Palestinian-American with aggravated assault despite calls for hate crime charges

By Joe Sutton, CNN

(CNN) — A man who was arrested earlier this year in connection with the stabbing of a Palestinian-American was indicted by a Texas grand jury Tuesday on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, despite calls from Muslim civil rights advocates to have him charged with a hate crime.

Austin police arrested Bert Baker, 36, in February and said at the time they believed the alleged attack to have been a “bias-motivated incident.”

But the grand jury “did not make a hate crime finding,” meaning the group “did not determine that the defendant intentionally selected the victim because of a bias or prejudice against the victim’s race, national origin, ancestry, or religion,” the Travis County District Attorney’s Office announced in a Tuesday news release.

“We know that many religious communities in Travis County and across the country are deeply concerned about a rise in hate crime reports and that many were hoping for the grand jury to reach a different conclusion in this case,” District Attorney José Garza said in a statement.

“Our office takes the hate crime referrals we receive from our law enforcement partners incredibly seriously. We remain steadfast in our commitment to prosecute these cases and ensure that those who commit hate crimes in Travis County are held accountable,” Garza added.

Baker’s attorney, Richard Gentry, said the district attorney’s office “did a thorough investigation.”

“The Grand Jury confirmed that there’s no basis whatsoever to think Bert Baker is a racist or hateful to any group,” Gentry told CNN. “The early narrative about what occurred that evening has not been supported by the actual facts, and our defense will continue to show that there is more to this story than what was said publicly at the time.”

The victim, who was identified by his father as Zacharia Doar, was hospitalized and had surgery after the stabbing, which, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, followed a pro-Palestinian protest in Austin.

In the days following the incident, CAIR representatives and other community leaders called for it to be treated as a hate crime, pointing in part to the suspect’s alleged attempt to rip a flagpole bearing a keffiyeh – a traditional Palestinian scarf – from the car in which the victim was traveling, according to previous CNN reporting.

In a statement to CNN on Tuesday, CAIR said while they “welcome” the indictment, “the charges should have included a hate crime enhancement.”

“If shouting racial slurs at a group of Palestinian-Americans and ripping the Palestinian flagpole off their car before stabbing one of them is not a hate crime, then nothing is a hate crime,” CAIR said. “We encourage federal law enforcement to investigate this attack and consider hate crime charges.”

The case will now head to the 331st Judicial Court for Travis County, where Baker will be prosecuted, according to the district attorney’s office.

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