A teenager has been charged in connection with an arson attack on a Jewish charity’s ambulances in March, according to U.K. police, becoming the fifth person to be charged over the attack.
The March blaze in Golders Green, an area in north London with a large Jewish population, engulfed four ambulances belonging to Hatzola Northwest, a Jewish volunteer organization that provides medical care in the neighborhood.
In a statement Tuesday, London’s Metropolitan Police named the fifth man as British 18-year-old Subhan Ahmed, who was charged with “assisting an offender.”
The other men allegedly involved in the incident are 20-year-old Hamza Iqbal, 19-year-old Rehan Khan, 18-year-old Judex Atshatshi and a 17-year-old boy who can’t be named for legal reasons because he is under 18. All were charged with “committing arson destroying or damaging property being reckless as to whether life would be endangered.”
The five men have a trial date set for January 2027.
Counterterror police are investigating the fire as an antisemitic hate crimeand looking into claims of responsibility by a group allegedly connected to Iran.
Speaking to CBS News after the incident, a member of the group – known as Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, or The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Righteous – said they would “keep threatening U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide until we’ve avenged every child in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, and the resistance nations.”
The British capital has seen a string of antisemitic attacks in recent months, including arson targeting synagogues and other Jewish sites. In late April, two men were wounded in a stabbing attack in Golders Green that was declared a terrorist incident.
“It’s utter horror,” an Orthodox Jewish resident, who also asked to remain anonymous, told CBS News after the attack. “I can’t believe what’s going on. We have to live in fear — constantly looking behind our backs, wondering if someone might attack us with a knife … and even if we leave, where do we go? There are people trying to attack us everywhere.”
Europe has also seen a recent rise in antisemitic incidents, including an explosion outside a Jewish school in Amsterdam and attacks outside synagogues in Liege, Belgium, and Rotterdam in The Netherlands in April.
In March, two men were charged with carrying out “hostile” surveillance of Jews in London for Iran, and officials in France foiled a suspected terror plot on Jewish targets.
