In his first public interview since his arrest, the man accused by police of committing a hate crime against a Harvard senior angrily denied that the assault was a hate crime or that he was a skinhead.

"The guy just got in the middle of the wrong fight," says Benjamin Bargeil. "It ain't a hate crime."

Detectives from the Cambridge Police Department (CPD) arrested Bargeil, 25, a self-described "drifter," early Monday morning in connection with an assault on Sept. 19 that police said they believe was a hate crime.

Both the victim and police have said they believe the victim was targeted because of his skin color and the fact that he was wearing an Islamic prayer cap.

Bargeil says, however, he is very active in non-racist organizations, mainly the group Anti-Racist Action (ARA).

"When the cops arrested me, all I had on me were flyers for ARA," he says.

When asked if he considers himself a skinhead, he denied the label.

The account he gives of the Sept. 19 incident differs from 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 wound sustained when he hit his head on the ground during the incident.

The victim declined to comment for this story.

Bargeil says he and a friend were on their way to the store, asking people for money along the way, when a person wearing Harvard athletic clothing tried to provoke them.

When they asked this student for money, the man responded, "Get a job, you slobs."

Bargeil and his friend confronted the man when the victim of the assault wandered into the middle of it.

Bargeil says he hit the victim by accident, at which point the victim fell to the ground and grabbed onto Bargeil's leg.

"I tried to leave him alone," Bargeil says.