Alleged offence: Students are studying at St Andrews University. Pic: © STV
Pair are alleged to have acted in a racially aggravated manner which was intended to cause alarm or distress to Jewish student.
Two students at St Andrews University are to stand trial accused of racially offending a Jewish student by putting their hands down their trousers, touching their genitals then rubbing their hands on an Israeli flag.
Samuel Colchester, 20, and Paul Donnachie, 19, appeared at Cupar Sheriff Court. The pair are alleged to have acted in a racially aggravated manner which was intended to cause alarm or distress to Chanan Roziel Reitblat.
It is claimed they carried out the offensive act then made comments "of an offensive nature" in Mr Reitblat's presence.
Fiscal depute Tracy Plant said the pair had been due to appear on a separate complaint, but asked that it be dropped and replaced by more serious charges.
Colchester and Donnachie were to stand trial on that complaint in mid-April, but that date has now been changed as it falls during the Jewish festival of Passover.
The prosecutor said: "I would ask for the trial to be set for early May.
"The essential witnesses in this case are Jewish and Passover falls on those earlier dates."
Passover, which this year begins on Tuesday April 19 runs for seven days until Monday April 25, commemorates the story of Exodus, inw hich the ancident Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt.
Colchester, 20, of Andrew Melville Hall, North Haugh, St Andrews, and Donnachie, from McIntosh Hall, Abbotsford Crescent, St Andrews deny the offence.
An alternative charge, which they also deny, alleges that they behaved in a threatening or abusive manner that was likely to cause fear or alarm.
The offences are said to have happened on March 12 this year at a building owned by the University of St Andrews at 30 Links Crescent in the Fife town.
The pair will stand trial in May, and were released on bail by Sheriff Mungo Bovey QC. He ordered them to return to court in April for a pre-trial hearing.
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