The United Kingdom’s Metropolitan Police have charged a man with attempted murder following an investigation into the stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green, north London.
Following the stabbings in a residential area of the UK capital on Wednesday, officials raised the national terrorism threat to its second-highest level, signalling that an attack within the next six months is “highly likely”.
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This week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged stronger action will be taken to protect Jewish people.
Police said Essa Suleiman, 45, had been charged with two counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a bladed article in a public place in relation to the attack. He was also charged with attempted murder in relation to a separate incident earlier on the same day in south London.
Suleiman has been remanded in custody and is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court later on Friday.
Police said Suleiman resisted arrest and was detained with the use of a taser gun. Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said the police officers who arrested a man after Wednesday’s stabbings of two Jewish men in north London were “shaken” after the intervention.
The UK’s Green Party leader Zack Polanski retweeted an X post accusing the officers of “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head” when he was already incapacitated from being tasered. Video showing the violent arrest was widely circulated.
Asked if the officers’ behaviour was “acceptable”, Rowley told LBC radio on Friday morning: “I sat down with the officers on Wednesday afternoon, a couple of hours after the attack, and you could still see they were shaken.
“They’d taken on a terrorist, and as that incident developed they were afraid, because he didn’t comply at all, even after being dropped to the floor by a taser, they were afraid that he might have an explosive device on him from the way he’s behaving, he didn’t in the end, and of course they used a lot of force,” he said.
Asked if it was “necessary” to kick the man in the head during the arrest, Rowley said: “They’re using the force that they seem (sic) necessary.
“Unless you’ve been in that moment where you’re scared stiff and you’re confronting somebody so dangerous, it’s hard to put yourself in that situation.
“They’re desperately concerned about stunning him and sort of neutralising him.
“I’m not interested in politics but if somebody eminent, rather than some of the oddballs on social media,