Police have confirmed no injuries occurred during the three separate incidents in north London
A Ukrainian national has been charged with multiple counts of arson following a series of fires, including one at a property owned by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the Metropolitan Police have confirmed.
In a statement issued on Thursday, police said Roman Lavrynovych, 21, of Sydenham in south London, faces three counts of arson with intent to endanger life. The charges relate to a string of incidents between May 8 and May 12, including a vehicle fire, a blaze at the entrance of a property, and a third fire at a residential address.
The first fire took place on May 8, when a Toyota Rav4 was set alight in Kentish Town. The car had previously belonged to Starmer but had been sold to a neighbor, according to the Telegraph newspaper.
On May 11, another fire broke out at the entrance of a flat in Islington that Starmer reportedly owned in the 1990s. In the early hours of May 12, a third fire was reported at the Prime Minister’s current family home in Tufnell Park, which is now rented out to his sister-in-law, according to the media.
While the entrance and front door were damaged, no injuries were reported in any of the incidents.
The Metropolitan Police said its Counter Terrorism Command is leading the investigation “due to the property having previous connections with a high-profile public figure.”
Lavrynovych was arrested in the early hours of Tuesday and has remained in custody since. He is scheduled to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday.
Starmer himself has described the attacks as an “attack on all of us, on our democracy and the values that we stand for.”
According to the Telegraph, investigators are exploring a number of potential motives, including whether a hostile state might have been involved, although no evidence of such a link has been confirmed.
Meanwhile, Lavrynovych’s neighbors in Sydenham have described him as quiet and unremarkable. “He was a normal guy – like us,” one person told reporters. Another, who had lived in the flat above him for seven years, said he was “a normal boy,” noting that he didn’t speak English too well.
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