Leicester City football club owner’s helicopter crashes outside stadium

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Police officers secure the area outside Leicester City Football Club's King Power Stadium in Leicester, eastern England, on October 27, 2018 after a helicopter crashed in a car park outside the stadium. (AFP)
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This image made from video shows a burning helicopter in a parking lot outside the King Power Stadium in Leicester, England shortly after a Premier League game on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. (AP)
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King Power Stadium, Leicester, Britain - October 27, 2018 Firemen at the scene of where the helicopter belonging to Leicester City owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha crashed outside the King Power Stadium. (REUTERS)
Updated 28 October 2018
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Leicester City football club owner’s helicopter crashes outside stadium

  • Billionaire Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who owns Thai duty-free retail giant King Power, bought Leicester in 2010 and provided the funds that helped the team improbably win the Premier League at odds of 5,000-1 in 2016

LEICESTER, England: A helicopter belonging to Leicester City football club owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha crashed in a ball of flames in the club’s car park on Saturday after a Premier League match, British media said.

BBC reported that Vichai, a father of four and the founder of duty-free giant King Power International, was on board the helicopter when it crashed around an hour after the game had ended, according to a source close to his family.
According to eyewitnesses, the helicopter just cleared the top of the stadium before it started to spin. It then plummeted to the ground and burst into flames.
A spokesman for the Midlands club said: “We are assisting Leicestershire Police and the emergency services in dealing with a major incident at King Power Stadium.”
Police and the ambulance services urged people to stay away.
John Butcher, who was near the stadium at the time of the crash, told the BBC his nephew saw the helicopter spiral out of control apparently due to a faulty rear propeller.
“Within a second it dropped like a stone to the floor...Luckily it did spiral for a little while and everybody sort of ran, sort of scattered. As far as we are aware nobody around the car park was caught up in this problem.”
In Thailand, officials at King Power said they could not yet comment on the crash or say whether Vichai had been aboard.
Vichai is a huge favorite with the fans after he bought the unfancied side from central England in 2010 and they went on to stun the soccer world by winning the league title in 2016.
According to Forbes magazine he is the fifth richest person in Thailand with an estimated net worth of $4.9 billion.
Leicestershire Police said a team from the Department for Transport’s Air Accidents Investigations Branch had taken charge of the investigation into the cause of the crash.

English champions
After pumping millions of pounds into the club, he helped steer them back into the top flight in 2014 before they stunned the sport by beating the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea to become champions of England.
Leading players in the side, including Jamie Vardy and Harry Maguire, sent messages of support on Twitter while rival clubs including Manchester City also voiced their concern.
Freelance photographer Ryan Brown was covering the game and saw the helicopter clear the stadium before it crashed, the BBC reported.
“Literally the engine stopped and I turned around, and it made a bit of a whirring noise,” Brown told BBC Radio 5 Live. “It turned silent, blades started spinning and then there was a big bang.”
Leicester had played a league match at home against West Ham United earlier on Saturday, drawing 1-1.
The self-made businessman Vichai founded Thai duty-free giant King Power in 1989.
The duty-free business got a big boost in 2006 when it was granted an airport monopoly under the government of then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and it continued to prosper even after Thaksin’s ouster in a coup that year.
The family’s empire also includes Belgian football club, Oud-Heverlee Leuven. 


Greta Thunberg released from custody after arrest at UK pro-Palestinian protest

Updated 56 min 45 sec ago
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Greta Thunberg released from custody after arrest at UK pro-Palestinian protest

  • UK-based campaign group Prisoners for Palestine said Thunberg was earlier arrested under the Terrorism Act
  • City of London Police said ‌Thunberg ⁠had ​been ‌bailed until March

LONDON: Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was released from custody after being arrested ​on Tuesday in London at a pro-Palestinian protest, police said.

UK-based campaign group Prisoners for Palestine said Thunberg was earlier arrested under the Terrorism Act for holding a sign that said “I support the Palestine Action prisoners. I oppose genocide.” The British government has proscribed Palestine Action as ‌a terrorist ‌group.

City of London Police said ‌Thunberg ⁠had ​been ‌bailed until March.

Police said earlier two other people had been arrested for throwing red paint at a building. A spokesperson said 22-year-old woman later attended the scene and was arrested for displaying a placard in support of a proscribed organization.

Prisoners for ⁠Palestine, which supports some detained activists who have gone on ‌hunger strike, said the building ‍had been targeted because it ‍was used by an insurance firm which they ‍said provided services to the British arm of Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems.

The insurance company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Thunberg, 22, became ​prominent after staging weekly climate protests in front of the Swedish parliament in ⁠2018.

Last year, she was cleared of a public order offense in Britain as a judge ruled police had no power to arrest her and others at a protest in London the year before.

She was detained along with 478 people and expelled by Israel in October after joining an activist convoy of vessels, the Global Sumud Flotilla, that attempted to reach Gaza with aid supplies. ‌Israel has consistently denied genocide allegations.