Three men to go on trial next year over fires linked to UK PM Starmer

LONDON (Reuters) -Three men all linked to Ukraine will go on trial next April accused of involvement in a series of arson attacks on houses and a vehicle in London connected to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a London court heard on Friday.

Over five days last month, police were called to fires at a house in north London owned by Starmer, another at a property nearby where he used to live, and to a blaze involving a car that also used to belong to the British leader.

Ukrainian Roman Lavrynovych, 21, is charged with three counts of arson with intent to endanger life. Fellow Ukrainian Petro Pochynok, 34, and Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, 26, who was born in Ukraine, are accused of conspiracy to commit arson.

Lavrynovych and Carpiuc appeared by video-link at London's Old Bailey court on Friday where Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb set the trial for April 27 next year. Pochynok was not present for the hearing.

In earlier hearings, prosecutors said the motive for the arsons was unclear.

The men will enter formal pleas at a hearing in October, but the lawyers for Carpiuc and Pochynok said their clients denied involvement. 

Counter-terrorism police have led the investigation but none of the men have been charged with offences under terrorism laws or the new National Security Act, which was brought in to target hostile state activity. 

Police said the first fire involved a Toyota RAV4 car that Starmer used to own and sold to a neighbour. Days later, there was a blaze at a property where Starmer previously resided and the following day there was an attack on a house in north London that he still owns.

Starmer, who has lived at his official 10 Downing Street residence in central London since becoming prime minister last July, has called the incidents "an attack on all of us, on our democracy and the values we stand for".

Earlier this week a fourth man, aged 48, who had been arrested at London Stansted Airport in connection with the arson, was released on police bail.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Sachin Ravikumar)