Ukrainian arson trial: prosecution claims ‘Russian’ paid 3 men to burn Starmer property

The trial of three young Ukrainian men facing arson charges for allegedly setting fire to property belonging to Keir Starmer is underway. The prosecution is attempting to paint a picture of Russian involvement in the attacks. Allegedly, a Russian-speaker known as ‘El Money’ paid the men to set the fires and they accepted, even though Ukraine was already at war with Russia.

Not only is the issue of motive for a Russian paying Ukrainians to target a UK PM helping Ukraine not being addressed, prosecution barrister Duncan Atkinson has told the jury that it’s none of their business:

It is no part of your considerations to decide who ‘El Money’ is and what reason he might have had to co-ordinate the actions of these defendants against these ​properties and this car associated with the prime minister.

The court has heard that police extracted data from the defendants’ phones and searched it by key terms, contacts and locations. But although the information was put into a timeline for the case, Atkinson said that the timeline might not match exact timings of the events. He told jurors that the information extracted includes “images and video of the three locations” of the arson attacks.

The defendants were also said to have used the Telegram encrypted messaging app, which “in many cases” meant police could only recover half of the conversations because of automatic or manual deletions.

Starmer’s property that was attacked included a RAV4 car, a house in Ellington Street ​managed by a ​company of which ⁠Starmer had been a director and shareholder and a house in Countess Road that he still owns. Allegedly, the accused bought supplies from B&Q for the attacks.

All three deny the charges.

Featured image via the Canary