Two found guilty of arson, targeting UK prime minister

A British court on Monday convicted two men of a series of arson attacks on two houses in London and a car linked to Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

A jury at London’s Old Bailey found Roman Lavrynovych, 22, and Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, both guilty of conspiring to damage property by fire.

Overnight attacks in May 2025 targeted two houses in Kentish Town, north London, the first of which was managed by a company where Starmer had been a director and the second of which was his former residence and the home of his sister-in-law and her family.

The attackers set fire to the front doors of the houses, endangering the lives of those inside, prosecutors said.

Another attack set alight a Toyota car the prime minister formerly owned.

Starmer told MPs the crimes were “an attack… on democracy and the values that we stand for”.

The unusual case has prompted widespread speculation online.

The court heard the attackers were offered money to carry out the attacks via Telegram messenger by a Russian-speaking figure using the name “El Money”. They exchanged hundreds of messages, starting months before the attacks.

Prosecutors said the perpetrators did not express any political motivation to carry out the crimes and their motive was financial.

Helen Flanagan, head of counter-terrorism policing for London, said after the verdict that the mastermind wanted to “create fear” although there was no evidence El Money was a “state threat”.

The Financial Times reported that its investigation had found that El Money was located in Russia and linked to a prominent hacker group called NoName.

Lavrynovych, a Ukrainian citizen, who the prosecution said lit all three fires, was convicted on two additional counts of arson reckless of danger to life.

Prosecutors said Lavrynovych, who lived in southeast London, conducted reconnaissance and returned later to photograph the damage.

El Money then urged him to leave London, saying he had attacked the home of a “very high-ranking person in Britain”.

Carpiuc, a Romanian national, “played a coordinating role, including planning elements of the offending and handling payment arrangements,” the Crown Prosecution Service said in statement after the verdict.

A third man was acquitted of conspiracy to commit arson.

“These were deliberate and dangerous acts of arson, carried out against properties and a vehicle linked to the Prime Minister, and they posed a serious risk to life,” British prosecution service’s anti-terrorism chief Frank Ferguson said in a statement.

He said the convictions showed that “those who commit criminal acts, including acts of arson, to pursue their, or others’ agendas, will be investigated thoroughly and prosecuted robustly”.

The men were to be sentenced on Friday.

AFP