Teen charged over Golders Green ambulance arson attack

An 18-year-old man has become the fifth person charged in connection with an alleged arson attack that destroyed four ambulances belonging to a Jewish volunteer medical charity in north London.

London’s Metropolitan Police said Tuesday that Subhan Ahmed, a British teenager from Walthamstow in north-east London, was charged with assisting an offender after the March 23 fire in Golders Green, an area with a large Jewish population. The ambulances belonged to Hatzola Northwest, a Jewish volunteer organization that provides medical care in the neighborhood.

The BBC reported that Ahmed is alleged to have made arrangements to scrap his car to help others avoid arrest or prosecution. He has been bailed and is due to appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on June 16.

The blaze engulfed four Hatzola ambulances, led to an explosion and caused about £1 million in damage to the vehicles and medical equipment, according to the BBC. Nearby flats and a synagogue were also affected.

Four other people had already been charged in the case: Hamza Iqbal, 20; Rehan Khan, 19; Judex Atshatshi, 18; and a 17-year-old boy who cannot be named for legal reasons because he is under 18. The BBC reported that Iqbal, Khan and the 17-year-old are charged with arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered, while Atshatshi is charged with arson with intent to damage and being reckless as to whether life would be endangered. CBS News reported that the four were charged with committing arson destroying or damaging property while being reckless as to whether life would be endangered.

The five defendants have a trial date set for January 2027, CBS News reported. The BBC said the four previously charged defendants were bailed until August.

Prosecutors have said they believe the fire was a targeted attack against the Jewish community. Counterterrorism officers in the Metropolitan Police are investigating the blaze as an antisemitic hate crime and are looking into claims of responsibility by a group allegedly connected to Iran, according to CBS News.

CBS News reported that 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 the group would “keep threatening U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide until we’ve avenged every child in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, and the resistance nations.”

The attack is one of several recent incidents targeting Jewish sites or people in London. The BBC reported that counterterrorism officers are investigating attacks on synagogues and a Jewish business, along with a double stabbing in Golders Green. CBS News reported that 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 asked to remain anonymous, told CBS News after the ambulance 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.”

CBS News also reported a recent rise in antisemitic incidents elsewhere in Europe, 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, the outlet reported.