UK police charge 3 over attempted arson on Iran International

LONDON: UK police said Friday they had charged two young men and a teenage boy, following an attempted arson attack on the offices of Persian-language outlet Iran International.
London’s Met police said Oisin McGuinness, 21, and Nathan Dunn, 19, both of Watford, northwest of London, and a 16-year-old boy from north London were all charged with arson with intent to endanger life.
McGuinness was also charged with dangerous driving.
All three are British nationals and are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday, police said.
The force had announced their arrests Thursday following the incident the previous evening in northwest London, when “an ignited container” was thrown into the premises housing Iran International.
“The container landed in a carpark, where the fire immediately put itself out and there were no reported injuries,” the Met said in its statement Friday.
The suspects were arrested after an armed police vehicle in the area pursued an SUV which had fled the scene and later crashed in north London, it added.
“Following liaison with and authorization from the Crown Prosecution Service, they were subsequently charged,” the force noted, referring to the prosecution service in England and Wales.
A spokesman for Iran International on Thursday condemned the attack, which it called part of a “sustained effort to intimidate Iran International and silence independent Persian-language journalism beyond Iran’s borders.”
Iran International is one of several Persian-language outlets critical of Iran’s clerical leadership operating from abroad.
Housed in a heavily-secured building in west London, the newsroom employs about 200 journalists, with correspondents in Washington, Paris, Berlin and Tel Aviv and was labelled a “terrorist organization” by Tehran in 2022.