Golders Green terror attack suspect charged with attempted murder
A 45-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder after two Jewish men were stabbed in north London on Wednesday.
The Metropolitan Police have confirmed that Essa Suleiman has been charged with two counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a bladed article in a public place in connection with the incident in Golders Green.
Suleiman, of Camberwell, south London, was also charged with attempted murder in relation to a separate incident in Great Dover Street, Southwark, in the early hours of Wednesday.
He will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday.
Suleiman was born in Somalia and came to the UK legally as a child in the 1990s and was reported to the Government’s counter-extremism program Prevent in 2020, but the case was closed the same year.
Police arrested the suspect with a stun gun following a double stabbing that left two Jewish men (34-year-old Shloime Rand and 76-year-old Moshe Ben Baila, locally called Moshe Shine) hospitalized.
Mr Rand told the BBC it was a “miracle” that he survived, adding: “I feel like God has given me my life back.”
Rabbi Levi Schapiro of the Jewish Community Council, who visited both victims, said in a statement on social media that he was discharged from the hospital and was recovering at home after receiving stitches.
Mr Shine is in hospital and is in a stable condition.
The Metropolitan Police said pro-Palestinian marches across the country would be assessed after the terror threat level in the UK was raised to “serious” by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Center on Thursday, meaning a terrorist attack was “highly likely”.
The Home Office said the decision was not solely a result of the Golders Green attack, adding that the threat level in the UK had “increased for some time”.
The Stop the War Coalition is planning a major demonstration in London on May 16 to mark Nakba Day, commemorating the Palestinians displaced in 1948 during the founding of Israel.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley criticized Green Party leader Zack Polanski for retweeting an X post accusing officers of “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head” when he was already incapacitated from electric shock.
Sir Mark Rowley said he was “disappointed” and added that the post was “inaccurate and misinformed”.
