Four plead guilty to £1m arson attack on Jewish ambulances in London
Four men have admitted to setting fire to four ambulances belonging to a Jewish community charity in north-west London, causing damage estimated at £1 million.
Hamza Iqbal, 20, Rehan Khan, 19, Judex Atshatshi, 18, and Saif Ali, 18, pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to destroying or damaging property while being reckless as to whether human life could be endangered.
The incident occurred in the early hours of March 23, when four ambulances operated by the Hatzola charity were deliberately set ablaze in Golders Green.
Prosecutors said they believed the attack was targeted at the Jewish community. The court was told that three of the defendants ignited the fully equipped ambulances, while the fourth remained in a nearby vehicle.
Gas canisters inside the ambulances exploded after the fires were started, destroying the vehicles, each valued at about £250,000. The blaze also damaged four electrical charging points and their cables, with each installation costing around £5,000.
Prosecutor Leo Seelig told the court that the Crown Prosecution Service would seek to have the men sentenced on the basis that the arson was connected to terrorism.
However, Mrs Justice Cheema Grubb said she would not make a ruling on the terrorism allegation at this stage. Defence lawyers argued there was insufficient evidence linking the incident to terrorism.
The judge said sentencing would take place after the conclusion of proceedings involving a fifth man, Subhan Ahmed, who has pleaded not guilty to a charge of assisting an offender.
Iqbal and Khan, both from Leyton, Atshatshi from Dagenham, and Ali from Walthamstow, were remanded in custody.
Hatzola, which relies on volunteers, has provided emergency medical assistance to the Golders Green community and surrounding areas since 1979. The Jewish-led charity offers free emergency response and transport to hospitals to people of all faiths, using volunteer medical personnel.
The Community Security Trust, which works to protect British Jews from terrorism and antisemitism, welcomed the guilty pleas and said the attack had caused widespread shock and distress within the Jewish community.
The charity described the incident as a serious antisemitic attack on a volunteer ambulance service that provides emergency care to people from all backgrounds across north London.
The four men are expected to be sentenced in spring next year. Prosecutors are expected to argue at sentencing that the attack had a terrorism connection, while lawyers representing the defendants have maintained that none of the men has links to terrorism.
The BBC reports that British intelligence agencies initially considered several possibilities, including whether Iran or groups linked to the Iranian state had played a role in the Hatzola attack and other incidents targeting Jewish communities in 2026.
Intelligence assessments later pointed to Iran or its proxies as potentially being involved.
The assessment has reportedly gained further support from an FBI investigation into an Iranian-Iraqi national accused by US authorities of organising attacks against Jewish communities across Europe.
US court documents allege that Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, described as a commander of an Iraqi militia, was connected to attacks in London, including the destruction of Jewish charity ambulances.
Al-Saadi was arrested in Turkey in May and extradited to the United States. The US Department of Justice has accused him of helping plan more than a dozen terrorist attacks in North America and Europe.
Court documents made public in the US list several incidents across Europe that investigators allege were linked to him. In several cases, responsibility for attacks targeting Jewish interests was claimed online by a group known as Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand.
According to US prosecutors, the group’s social media account claimed responsibility for the London ambulance attack, while al-Saadi allegedly shared propaganda videos showing the incident.
The US indictment states that around 1:45 a.m. on March 23, 2026, three masked individuals carried out an arson attack on four Hatzola ambulances in London.
It further alleges that the group later published a propaganda video on Telegram claiming responsibility for the attack, while al-Saadi allegedly shared videos of the incident on social media two days later.
US prosecutors have also accused al-Saadi of sharing propaganda connected to an attempted arson attack on a synagogue in north London in April.
His lawyers in the United States have previously denied the allegations and described him as a political prisoner.
Source: BBC
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