New Haven, Connecticut - Tuesday, February 27, 2018: Saifullah Khan, a former Yale student on trial for allegedly sexually assaulting a female classmate, leaves New Haven Superior Court Tuesday afternoon. (New Haven Register)
A suspended Yale University student from Afghanistan accused of raping a female undergraduate student in 2015 has been acquitted of all charges, and his lawyer is calling on the school to reinstate him.
A state jury in New Haven on Wednesday found Saifullah Khan not guilty of four sexual assault charges in less than four hours.
According to the New Haven Register, Khan testified that he has no real home. Last week he told the paper’s reporter: “I am alone in America.”
The 25-year-old — who gave his home address as his attorneys’ office in New Haven, according to the Register — was charged with raping a female student in her dorm room on Halloween night amid rowdy partying and a campus orchestra concert.
The woman told police Khan took advantage of her when she was drunk and raped her, but Khan testified Tuesday that she was the aggressor and invited him into her room.
The trial, according to The New York Times, took on political significance over whether campus assault cases ought to be conducted by universities or law enforcement.
The Times reported that during the trial Khan’s defense lawyers accused the Ivy League university of making their client a scapegoat for its own previous poor handling of sexual assault claims.
“These are dangerous times for everyone on campus,” Norm Pattis said in his closing arguments, according to The Times.
Khan’s case is one of the few campus rape cases to go to trial, according to The Yale Daily News.
“We’re grateful to six courageous jurors who were able to understand that campus life isn’t the real world,” Pattis said via email after the verdict, according to the Yale paper. “Kids experiment with identity and sexuality. When an experiment goes awry, it’s not a crime.”
Yale suspended Khan, who was studying cognitive science, after his arrest more than two years ago.
His attorneys told the Register, “Now that Mr. Khan has been acquitted, we’re calling for Yale to readmit him. He was suspended in 2015 without a hearing. It’s time to right that wrong.”
Tom Conroy, director of the Office of Public Affairs and Communications, told Fox News via email: “Yale doesn’t have a comment on the verdict.”
Conroy didn’t comment on whether Khan will be allowed to return to school.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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