The Justice Department on Wednesday indicted eight young anti-Israel activists, most of whom studied or worked at the University of Michigan, for orchestrating a criminal plot “to terrorize government officials, businesses, and the Jewish Federation” of Detroit. The defendants, many of them known campus agitators, targeted the homes of university officials and intended to use “poison, bombs, and psychological torture” on their targets.
“In the dead of night, masked and hooded defendants allegedly threw noxious chemicals through the windows of families’ homes and taped demand letters to their front doors,” said Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office. “At every step they attempted to cover their tracks and delete evidence of their crimes.”
The eight defendants—identified in the federal indictment as 23-year-old Zainab Aliasgar Hakim, 21-year-old Amatullah Aliasgar Hakim, 26-year-old Paige Elizabeth Feyock, 28-year-old Ahmet Kerem Korkaya, 22-year-old Jonathan Hongru Zou, 23-year-old Alexander Matthew Sepulveda, 24-year-old Mariam Muhammed Odeh, and 24-year-old Colin Hunter Weger—allegedly collected “personal addresses, photographs, political and social connections, business ownership, and other personal details of the targets.”
The arrests mark an escalation in the Justice Department’s pursuit and prosecution of violent left-wing extremists. In the years since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, some universities and local police departments looked the other way at violent anti-Israel protests. The prestigious University of Michigan in particular came under heavy criticism for its allegedly permissive response to violent protesters and encampments and for failing to crack down on antisemitism. Now the federal government is stepping in.
The criminal plot in Ann Arbor began materializing shortly after Hamas’s October 7 terror attack on Israel, when the defendants publicly posted a series of demands to UM’s leaders that included financial divestment from Israel. The conspirators made clear they felt compelled to “escalate, mobilize, and organize to demand divestment by any means necessary,” according to federal prosecutors. They later posted evidence of their crimes, including photos of a defaced Jewish Federation building and other local businesses on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack.
On May 21, 2024, Feyock, a UM medical researcher who graduated from elite Wellesley College and Korkaya, a medical student in Wisconsin, formulated plans to “‘kill,’ ‘torment,’ and ‘terrorize’ their targets and families,” according to evidence presented by the Justice Department. “Referring to one victim, Korkaya stated his ‘entire family’ was on his ‘hit list’ [and] Feyock added that they should ‘get’ the ‘kids’ of two victims.” Korkaya subsequently said of another listed target, “I’m gonna be the dirtiest f—g doctor ever / I’m gonna be [the victim’s] doctor / poison her a— slowly.” Feyock agreed with this plan and added: “We need people following [the victim] / get into that house then burn it down.”
Korkaya had the chemistry expertise to make good on his threat and allegedly aided in the creation of “noxious chemicals” that were used in the attacks on University of Michigan officials’ homes. A public profile on the Medical College of Wisconsin’s website says Korkaya received an MS in biomolecular science from Augusta University and a BS in biomedical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He worked as a researcher at the University of Michigan from 2023 to 2024, “screening small molecule inhibitors and degraders for therapeutic impact on various cancers.”
The feds did not specify what chemicals were used.
Feyock, meanwhile, was a constant presence at anti-Israel demonstrations on the University of Michigan’s campus. In November 2023, just a month after Hamas’s attack, Feyock participated in the high-profile sit-in at the university’s Ruthven Hall that prompted police intervention.
Feyock and Zainab Aliasgar Hakim are facing additional charges of witness intimidation that could carry up to 20 years in prison.
In July and August 2024, “Hakim and Feyock devised a plan to confront the victim, a University of Michigan student whom they believed may have been cooperating with federal authorities.” Hakin allegedly “warned that the victim was ‘going to send us to federal prison,'” prompting Feyock to respond, “We have to do something about [the victim] / [the victim] is actually a liability / the fact that [the victim] is naming you to [unindicted conspirator] is a major issue.” She later told her conspirators that, along with Hakim, the duo would “strip search” the victim for a wire. After confronting the unidentified student, Feyock allegedly said the individual “knows not to talk.”
Hakim, like Feyock and other conspirators, was a well-known anti-Israel agitator on campus. She completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan in 2024, obtaining a “Bachelor of Arts in History of Art, Women’s and Gender Studies, and a minor in Islamic Studies,” according to an April profile by the Polis Project, a magazine that “documents communities in resistance.” Hakim was hired for a full-time job at the university in October 2024 but was fired earlier this year for her anti-Israel activities, with the university saying she violated its “Violence in the University Community” guidelines.
In March 2024, for instance, Hakim interrupted University of Michigan president Santa Ono during an Honors Convocation. She trotted out a banner that read, “Divest Now,” and shouted that “Ono and [university] regents” are “funding genocide. 32,000 Palestinians have been murdered by Israel. Your students demand divestment.” Hakim also helped maintain the university’s pro-Hamas encampment.
Another defendant named in the indictment, Odeh, a recent UM graduate, also had a frontline presence at anti-Israel demonstrations. In March, Odeh and another 150 protesters appeared outside Ono’s house to accuse Israel of “genocide.”
“The war machine has once again flooded our screens with unbearable images: children wrapped in white shrouds, parents screaming in agony, entire families wiped out in an instant,” the Michigan Daily quoted Odeh as saying. “We have stood witness time and time again as journalists have went and given their lives to document and broadcast these horrors.”
Two other defendants, who are UM undergraduates—Sepulveda and Zou—allegedly carried out an attack at University of Michigan provost Laurie McCauley’s home. The pair “threw two glass jars filled with a blue substance and food compost through a window of the Provost’s home” and spray-painted it with “inverted red triangles and phrases including ‘Divest’ and ‘Free Palestine.'” Before law enforcement executed an April 2025 search warrant at Sepulveda’s home, he allegedly attempted to erase evidence on his phone laptop.
Sepulveda, part of the pro-Hamas “Jewish Voices for Peace” organization, also served as a public face at the university’s Diag encampment and publicly advocated for divestment from Israel. In a June 9 op-ed published by the Daily—just one day before the federal indictment was revealed—Sepulveda accused the university of exploiting foreign garment industry workers.
The Jewish Federation of Detroit, which was targeted by the defendants, said that many of the threats “directly” referenced “the Hamas-led terror attack” and appear to be inspired by the terror group.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for pursuing this investigation with the seriousness it demands, and we look forward to seeing justice served, sending a clear message that hate, intimidation and antisemitic violence have no place in our community or in our country,” the federation said.
U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon said in a statement that the defendants’ activities were “anti-American.”
“In America, we rule by law not by fear,” he said. “These alleged threats and attempts to terrorize government officials, businesses, and the Jewish Federation are anti-American. We will counter intimidation with justice.”
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