Skip to main content

2 men and a boy ordered to stay in UK custody over Jewish charity ambulance attack

LONDON (AP) — Two young men and a boy were ordered Saturday to remain in custody after appearing in court on arson charges in the torching of four ambulances owned by a Jewish charity in London.

The March 23 blaze in Golders Green, a north London neighborhood with a large Jewish population, destroyed four ambulances belonging to the volunteer organization Hatzola Northwest, which provides emergency care in the area. Oxygen cylinders in the vehicles exploded, breaking windows in an adjacent apartment block.

British men Hamza Iqbal, 20, and Rehan Khan, 19, and a 17-year-old of dual British-Pakistani nationality, all from east London, were charged Friday with arson and being reckless as to whether life would be endangered. The younger man cannot be named for legal reasons because he is under 18 and will be held in a youth detention center.

The suspects did not enter pleas at the 45-minute hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court on Saturday. The court also heard that a fourth suspect was arrested in connection with the fire.

Counterterror police are investigating the fire as an antisemitic hate crime. They were looking into a claim of responsibility by a group with potential links to Iran, but have not declared it an act of terrorism.

“There is significant evidence that this was a premeditated and targeted attack against the Jewish community,” prosecutor Emma Harraway told the court.

The three defendants are set to appear at London’s Central Criminal Court, better known as the Old Bailey, on April 24.

Two other men were previously released on bail after being arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
Read Next Story