ESSA SULEIMAN DENIES ATTEMPTED MURDER OVER GOLDERS GREEN STABBINGS

Essa Suleiman has denied attempting to murder two men in a knife attack in Golders Green, north London, and a friend at a flat in Southwark hours earlier. He appeared at the Old Bailey via video link on Friday and pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. Prosecutors allege he travelled from an address in south-east London to the home of Ishmail Hussein and tried to stab him when he answered the door. He is then accused of travelling by public transport to Golders Green and attacking Shloime Rand and Moshe Shine with a knife. Suleiman has also denied a separate charge of possessing a bladed article in a public place.

Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC told an earlier hearing that both victims were "obviously members of the orthodox Jewish community by the way they were dressed" at the time. Rand was allegedly stabbed once in the chest while studying at a synagogue on Highfield Avenue, suffering a punctured lung. Shine is said to have sustained several stab wounds to the neck. Both men were taken to hospital for treatment, and Rand later told the BBC it was a "miracle" he survived. The court heard the attack ended when another member of the public intervened and took the knife from the defendant, before emergency services arrived.

Counter Terrorism Police led the investigation and declared the Golders Green attack a terrorist incident, though one report said it is no longer being treated as terrorism. Suleiman was born in Somalia and came to the UK legally as a child in the 1990s; his current address cannot be published for legal reasons. He faces charges over both the Southwark and Golders Green attacks as well as the bladed article offence, and denies all of them. A trial date has been set for 1 March 2027.