London, United Kingdom. A Ukrainian man was found guilty on Monday of carrying out arson attacks on properties linked to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in May last year on behalf of a figure known only as “EL Money”. Two other defendants received mixed verdicts in the same case.
Convictions and acquittals
At London’s Old Bailey, 22-year-old Roman Lavrynovych was convicted of two counts of arson while being reckless as to whether life was endangered. Lavrynovych and 27-year-old Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, who was born in Ukraine, were also found guilty of conspiracy to commit arson.
A third defendant, 35-year-old Ukrainian national Petro Pochynok, was acquitted of conspiracy to commit arson. Lavrynovych was cleared of a separate charge of arson with intent to endanger life.
All three men are due to be sentenced on Friday.
Series of fires
Over a five-day period in May, emergency services responded to fires at a house in north London linked to Starmer, a nearby property where he had previously lived and where his sister-in-law still resided, and a Toyota vehicle that had once belonged to the prime minister.
Prosecution case
Jurors heard that Lavrynovych had been offered payment to carry out the attacks through a Telegram account operating under the name “EL Money”. The account communicated with him in both Russian and Ukrainian. Prosecutors did not identify who was behind the account.
“It is no part of your considerations to decide who ‘EL Money’ is and what reason he might have had to coordinate the actions of these defendants against these properties and this car associated with the prime minister,” prosecutor Duncan Atkinson told the court.
According to the prosecution, Carpiuc’s role involved planning the attacks and receiving payment.
Counter-terrorism inquiry
Ahead of the verdict, Helen Flanagan, head of counter-terrorism policing in London, said investigators had found no evidence linking the attacks to Moscow.
“Obviously, it was a Russian-speaking entity that created those taskings, but we have seen no evidence to link this back to any Russian-backed tasking,” she said. “At the moment, we’ve got no evidence to suggest that this was a state-backed threat and target on the prime minister.”