Two men found guilty over arson attacks linked to Keir Starmer

Two men have been found guilty of conspiring to carry out arson attacks on property and a car connected to Keir Starmer.Roman Lavrynovych, 22, from Ukraine, and Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, from Romania, were found guilty at the Old Bailey on Monday. Another Ukrainian man, Petro Pochynok, 35, was cleared of the same charge.Lavrynovych was also convicted of damaging two properties by fire being reckless as to whether life was endangered on 11 and 12 May last year. He was acquitted of two counts of committing arson with intent to risk life.Mr Justice Garnham remanded the defendants into custody to be sentenced on Friday. Jurors deliberated for seven hours and 26 minutes before reaching their unanimous verdicts. Lavrynovych and Carpiuc will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday.During a months-long trial, the jury heard that the three men were offered payment to set fire to a car and two houses linked to Starmer by a mysterious Russian-speaking figure named El Money, or “Hroshi” in Ukrainian.The anonymous contact, who communicated in Russian, offered Lavrynovych £3,000 in cryptocurrency if he set the fires, filmed them, and got them on the news.Starmer’s sister-in-law, Judith Alexander, was living with her partner and daughter in the prime minister’s former home in Kentish Town when the front door was set ablaze on 12 May 2025.“I did not see anyone on the street,” Alexander told the court in April, “but when I looked down I saw smoke and an orange glow where the front door was.”Following the arson attacks, El Money told Lavrynovych to leave the UK. “Look, you attacked the home of a very high-ranking person in Britain,” El Money wrote on Telegram. “I’ll send you money, you need to leave the city.”Lavyronvych was arrested at his home in Sydenham, south-east London, on 13 May 2025. Carpiuc was arrested on 17 May at Luton airport, while waiting to board a flight to Romania.Commander Helen Flanagan, the head of counter-terrorism policing London, said there was “no ideological motivation” for the defendants and “no evidence to suggest that they knew who they were targeting, and that that was the prime minister or properties linked to the prime minister”.She added: “However, clearly the intention from the online tasker was to create fear, both for the victim and the prime minister, and cause uncertainty, unrest, for the UK.”After the verdicts, the chief prosecutor, Frank Ferguson, said: “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.“Such offences go beyond damage to property – they are intended to intimidate and undermine public confidence, and that will not be tolerated.”