Ukrainian man jailed for arson attacks on property linked to UK PM Starmer

LONDON, June 19 – A Ukrainian man who carried out a series of arson attacks on property connected to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer last year was jailed for seven years on Friday.

Over five days last May, police were called to fires at a house in north London connected to Starmer, another at a property nearby where he previously lived and where his sister-in-law still resided, and to a blaze involving a Toyota car that also used to belong to the British leader.

Roman Lavrynovych, 22, was found guilty at London’s Old Bailey Court on Monday of two counts of committing arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered.

He was also convicted with Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, who was born in Ukraine, of conspiracy to commit arson.

Prosecutors at London’s Old Bailey court said Lavrynovych had been offered payment to carry out arson by an account on Telegram, which used the name “EL Money”.

EL Money contacted him in both Russian and Ukrainian, and prosecutors did not state who or what entity was believed to be behind the account and Lavrynovych said he did not know who he was targeting.

“You are not a man of great principle and you were easily bought,” the judge Neil Garnham told him saying he had “accepted the job as you had accepted other grubby little tasks”, calling him a man of “low level intellectual functioning”.

Lavrynovych was jailed for seven years, while Carpiuc received a two-year prison term. REUTERS