On May 14, senior Yasser Ahmed was driving to a part of the UC Irvine campus to dismantle a mock apartheid wall marking Palestine week that the Muslim Students’ Union (MSU) put up in protest of the Israeli-built wall in Palestine.

As Ahmed drove toward the display area, he noticed a silver Ford Taurus following him.

"I thought it was suspicious, so I got out of the truck to confront the driver," Ahmed said.

Ahmed thought that he had caught someone who was planning to damage the wall or harass the Muslim students. A similar wall display at UCI was burnt down a few years ago.

When the driver refused to identify himself, Ahmed tried to take a picture of the driver’s license plate with his cell phone. In front of dozens of people, the car revved up its engine and started pushing Ahmed.

Ahmed yelled out for help to friends who were working at the display site about 300 feet away.

When they started running toward him, the driver’s aggressive behavior intensified, he said. "He started really flooring it, and I had to basically jump out of the way."

Campus police arrived at the scene and followed the unidentified driver’s car.

Witnesses said they saw police pulling over the driver only to let him go afterward.

But officers told Ahmed and others they had stopped the wrong car, a claim that was contrary to eyewitness reports and that was later retracted by the police chief.

The chief explained to students that the driver was let go because he was an FBI agent.

For Ahmed and his friends at the MSU, the incident has raised many questions.

"Why didn’t the agent just pull out his badge when I went to question him?" Ahmed said. "Why was he so concerned about hiding his identity that he sped through campus and put students’ safety at risk?"

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said that the agent came onto campus "in the course of an investigation."

"Agents can be led anywhere during the course of an investigation," Eimiller said, offering no details. "There is no surveillance being conducted at educational institutions."

The incident occured one year after the Orange County Register reported comments by an FBI agent that the agency was "fully aware" of the activism of UCI and USC Muslim students.

At the time, FBI Assistant Director Stephen Tidwell attempted to reassure concerned Muslim community members that the FBI was not monitoring any students at UCI or USC.

For the MSU at UC Irvine, the incident is being interpreted as confirmation that Muslim students are being unduly targeted.

It has shaken "trust between the Muslim community and the FBI," said Munira Syeda, communications coordinator for the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Ahmed said he thinks there is a link between the incident and the MSU’s "Israel: Apartheid Resurrected Week" that was taking place at the same time.

"The university has come under a lot of pressure from a lot of pro-Israeli groups to curtail our freedom of expression and not have such events," said Ahmed, who serves as an advisor to the MSU.

"We receive dozens of hate e-mails daily, and the university receives calls from as far as Israel to stop our activities," he added.

Syeda said that "all students including Muslims, have a right to freedom of speech...[they] shouldn’t be intimidated and silenced from expressing their viewpoint. "After all, a strong but non-violent political view, as unpopular as it might be, is still protected free speech," she said.

UCI police are conducting internal investigations regarding the incident.

Ahmed and other MSU students are seeking legal counsel to determine a course of action.