LONDON (Reuters) – British police said a 21-year-old Ukrainian man had been charged with arson following a counter-terrorism investigation into a series of fires in London, including at Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s private home.
Police were called to reports of a fire in the early hours of Monday morning at the property in Kentish Town in north London, the area Starmer represents in parliament. Nobody was injured but damage was caused to the property’s entrance.
Roman Lavrynovych, who was arrested the following day in connection with the fire and two further incidents, was charged with three counts of arson with intent to endanger life, police said.
Police were investigating whether those two incidents – a fire at the entrance of a property in nearby Islington on Sunday and a vehicle fire in Kentish Town on Thursday – were linked to the fire at Starmer’s house. A BBC report said the Islington property was also connected to the prime minister.
Lavrynovych will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday.
Starmer called the incident an “attack on all of us, on our democracy and the values that we stand for.”
Starmer lived in the Kentish Town house on a back street with his wife and two children before he moved into his official Number 10 Downing Street residence when he became prime minister last July.
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar; Editing by David Gregorio)
