The Cambridge Police Department (CPD) apprehended a 25-year-old man early yesterday who detectives believe is responsible for committing a hate crime against a Muslim undergraduate nearly two weeks ago.

CPD detectives located Benjamin Bargeil, 25, formerly of Seattle, around midnight yesterday.

After an interview at CPD headquarters, he was arrested at 3 a.m. and charged with two counts of assault and battery and civil rights violations.

According to the police report, Bargeil admitted to detectives that he was present at the scene of the Sept. 19 assault, but said the Harvard senior who was injured was not the intended victim of his aggression.

Bargeil's statement differs with the victim's report. The student told police he was on his way home from the Islamic prayer room in Canaday Hall when two men attacked him from behind, punching and kicking him. The victim received stitches to close a head wound sustained in the attack.

The event was the second attack on a Harvard undergraduate in 72 hours, and led to fears that skinhead-related violence was on the rise in the Harvard Square area.

In the first assault, early on the morning of Sept. 17, a group of seven men harassed three Quincy House students outside Let's Go Travel on Mt. Auburn St. The students who were attacked described the seven men as "intoxicated skinheads." One student, Adam R. Kampff '02, received five stitches after one assailant hit him in the head with a plastic recycling bin.

CPD detectives who were investigating the incident in the Square Sunday night said they received information about the identities of the assailants, according to the police report.