A university student in Scotland lost his appeal of a racism conviction for insulting a fellow student’s Israeli flag.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel at the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh turned down Paul Donnachie, 19, in a bid to have his conviction overturned. Donnachie had been sentenced last August to 150 hours of community service and was expelled from St. Andrews University.

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Donnachie in March 2011 told Chanan Reitblat, an exchange student from Yeshiva University in New York, that Israel was a terrorist state and the flag was a terrorist symbol. He then put his hands down his pants and rubbed them on the small flag hanging on the wall, the BBC reported. He also called Reitblat a terrorist.

The flag had been a gift to Reitblat from his brother, an Israeli soldier.

“This is a ridiculous conviction,” Donnachie said at the time of his conviction, according to the BBC. “I’m a member of anti-racism campaigns, and I am devastated that as someone who has fought against racism I have been tarnished in this way.”

A second student, Samuel Colchester, 20, was acquitted due to insufficient evidence. He was suspended from the university for one year.

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