Three students being prosecuted over protests in Belfast against Hillary Clinton have secured a date for their bid to get the case against them dismissed.
Dennis Kuvaldins (22), Ethan Cunningham (20) and Seamus Wagner (18) are facing prosecution in connection with scuffles outside Queen’s University on November 14 last year.
A judge at Belfast Magistrates Court on Thursday agreed to list the case for trial in May.
Defence lawyers also set out a list of police witnesses they want to cross-examine at the contested hearing.
Anti-war protests were staged as Mrs Clinton, a former US presidential candidate, addressed a summit at the university where she is chancellor.
At the time the PSNI said a number of officers sustained injuries during scenes of public disorder.
Kulvaldins, of Cavendish Street in Belfast, is charged with assault on police, resisting police and obstructing police.
Cunningham, from Eglantine Avenue in the city, faces a single count of resisting police.
Wagner, of Queen’s Elms on the Malone Road, is accused of obstructing police and resisting police.
His lawyers have already claimed he had been wrongly charged because separate allegations of having trespassed into a cordoned-off area at the scene of the demonstration were dropped.
Wagner should not have been arrested at the scene where he was only protesting against the war in Gaza, a previous court heard.
But according to police, officers had been attempting to manage barriers erected at the scene when a co-accused allegedly ran towards Whitla Hall where the summit event was taking place.
As a constable chased and caught the other student, it was claimed that Wagner tried to free him from the officer’s grasp.
All three students deny the charges and are currently on bail while sitting university exams this month.
District Judge Anne Marshall confirmed that the contest will be held on May 1.