Three men accused of being responsible for a series of arson attacks on property linked to Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain went on trial on Wednesday in central London.
The fires broke out over a five-day period in May last year, at a house, an apartment and a vehicle, all of which Mr. Starmer either owned or had previously used. No one was injured, but the three defendants have been charged with “being reckless” over the possibility that people could have been killed because of their actions.
Prosecutors opened their case against the three men, Roman Lavrynovych, 22, Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, and Petro Pochynok, 35, at London’s central criminal court, known as the Old Bailey.
The three men deny all charges. Mr. Lavrynovych, a builder and aspiring model, and Mr. Pochynok, who described himself online as an “entrepreneur” in fashion retail, are Ukrainian citizens. Mr. Carpiuc, a hotel worker who is also an aspiring model, was born in Ukraine but holds Romanian nationality, according to his lawyer. They each lived in different parts of London at the time of the fires.
Counterterrorism detectives investigated the fires because of their connection to “a high-profile public figure,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement last year.
Prosecutor Sarah Przybylska told a previous hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court that the case involved three fires that were all “set at locations linked to the Prime Minister.” At that time, she said that “the alleged offending is unexplained,” although more details of the investigation are expected to be revealed at the trial.
In Britain, strict laws prevent the reporting of anything that could prejudice a jury after charges have been filed.
The first fire targeted an S.U.V. that Mr. Starmer had previously owned, which went up in flames on a residential London street at 3 a.m. on May 8, prosecutors said. Three days later, the front door of an apartment building where Mr. Starmer had lived in the 1990s was set on fire. And in the early hours of May 12, the townhouse that he shared with his family in Kentish Town before moving in 2024 to the British prime minister’s official residence, 10 Downing Street, was also targeted.
Mr. Starmer still owns the house, and people were living in it at the time of the fire, prosecutors said. Nobody was hurt, but the fire at the apartment building was at the entrance of the premises and blocked any exit for those inside, prosecutors said, and the front door of the townhouse was also set alight.
All three defendants have been charged with conspiring together to damage property by fire between April 1 and May 13 last year, which they deny. Mr. Lavrynovych faces two further charges of arson with intent to endanger life in relation to the incidents at Mr. Starmer’s former apartment and family home, and has pleaded not guilty. The trial is expected to last for two to three weeks.
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