Man stabbed to death outside luxury hotel in London

A murder investigation has been launched after a man was stabbed to death outside a 5-star hotel in one of London’s wealthiest areas.

The Metropolitan Police said the 24-year-old man was discovered with stab wounds outside the Park Tower hotel in Seville Street, Knightsbridge, in west London on Wednesday.

Officers are investigating whether the attack was a robbery.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after the emergency services arrived around 9.30pm, the force said.

His next-of-kin have been made aware of his death and they are being supported by specialist officers, the Met Police said.

The hotel, which charges around £600 a night for a room, is located near the luxury department store Harrods and Hyde Park.

A cordon is in place while officers carry out enquiries.

No arrests have been made in connection with the stabbing, the Met police said.

Superintendent Owen Renowden, who leads policing in Kensington and Chelsea, said: “Our thoughts are with the victim’s loved ones following the shocking events that took place last night.

“Detectives from the Specialist Crime Command, supported by local officers, are working at pace to establish the circumstances of what happened.

“We are aware of reports that this incident was a robbery. Although this is an active line of enquiry, we are keeping an open mind about all possible motives, and the exact circumstances are still to be determined.

“We understand the impact this incident will have on the local community and you will see extra officers in the area to help answer any questions or concerns. ”

The force has urged anyone who witnessed the event or has any other information to contact the police on 101 referencing CAD 8521/09JUL.

The public can also call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or visit crimestoppers-uk.org.

Ukraine arrests Chinese father and son accused of spying

Ukrainian authorities say they have detained a Chinese father and son on charges of spying on its Neptune anti-ship missile programme at a time when Kyiv is seeking to boost its domestic arms industry to counter Russian advances.

Neptune, a key component of Ukraine‘s naval warfare capabilities, was used to destroy the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the early months of the war. It has since been used on a range of targets including oil terminals.

The Security Service of Ukraine said on Wednesday that counterintelligence officials arrested a 24-year-old former student in Kyiv after supplying him with “technical documentation” related to Neptune production. They then detained the student’s father who they alleged was working to give the classified documents to Chinese special services.

Ukrainian officials claimed that the father lived in China but visited Ukraine to “personally coordinate” his son’s work.

The father and son are the first Chinese citizens to be held in Ukraine on spying allegations since the East European country was invaded by Russian forces in 2022.

The Chinese foreign ministry said on Thursday it was “still verifying the relevant information” about the arrest. “If Chinese citizens are involved, we will safeguard their legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law,” spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular press conference.

In the face of a relentless Russian air and ground onslaught and mixed signals about continued support from the US, its top military backer, Kyiv is trying to strengthen its domestic defence industry, especially the production of drones and missiles.

The arrest of the Chinese nationals follows allegations by Ukraine that Beijing is aiding the Russian war effort despite trying to project neutrality. Beijing denies the allegation.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused China of supplying weapons and gunpowder to Russia and sanctioned Chinese companies suspected to be involved. He has also claimed that Ukraine has captured Chinese nationals fighting for Russia.

Beijing, an ally of Moscow, has sought to portray itself as a peacemaker and said it was not arming either party. In May this year, Chinese president Xi Jinping travelled to Moscow for a visit that included talks with president Vladimir Putin. He has also spoken with Mr Zelensky in the course of the war and made calls for peace.

The Salt Path author breaks silence on ‘devastating’ claims over husband’s illness

The author of The Salt Path has defended her memoir against “devastating” allegations that parts of it were fabricated, stating that she has had “vitriol poured on me from all quarters” since the reports emerged last week.

Raynor Winn, 63, has described the days since The Observer newspaper published their investigation as the “hardest” of her life, calling the accusations that her husband made up his illness “heartbreaking”.

The author’s much-loved 2018 book tells how she and her husband, Moth, walked the South West Coast Path, a gruelling journey of 630 miles, after a string of private tragedies including the loss of their home in Wales and Moth being diagnosed with a neurological condition.

The Salt Path was a publishing hit, selling 2 million copies and winning Winn legions of fans. Its success prompted two sequels – The Wild Silence (2020) and Landlines (2022) – as well as a film adaptation starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs released in May.

On Sunday (6 July), The Observer published an investigation raising serious doubts over the accuracy of her memoir, including the veracity of Moth’s corticobasal degeneration (CBD), a rare and incurable neurological condition said to be both degenerative and terminal.

The investigation also said that the couple’s legal names are Sally and Timothy Walker, claiming they had misrepresented how they lost their home, which, according to Winn, was due to a bad business investment.

The Observer, however, reported that the couple lost their home after Winn allegedly defrauded her employer of £64,000 in 2008, which she apparently attempted to repay after taking out a loan from a relative.

They allegedly accrued over £100,000 in debt to a relative, which was secured against their home, a 17th century farmhouse in the Welsh countryside that was eventually repossessed. Contrary to being homeless, the report suggested the couple owned land in France at the time of their walk.

Writing on her website on Wednesday night (9 July), Winn said she was “truly sorry” for “mistakes” made while working with her former employer, Martin Hemmings, “in the years before the economic crash of 2008”.

“For me it was a pressured time. It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business,” she wrote. “Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret and I am truly sorry.” Winn gave no further details about the allegations of theft.

Winn said that the dispute involving Hemmings is not the court case referred to in The Salt Path and it was not the reason they lost their home.

As to the allegations over Moth’s CBS diagnosis, Winn called them “the most heartbreaking” of all.

She shared photographs of redacted clinic letters, addressed to Timothy Walker, that appear to show that he is “treated for CBD/S and has been for many years”.

In one letter, dated 2015, a consultant neurologist wrote that Moth could be “very mildly” affected by the condition, with a separate consultant neurologist in another letter describing his case as “unusual”.

“The clinical course in this case has been so atypical that we shouldn’t discount any possibility. His clinical story has been unique,” the doctor wrote.

Alongside the photos, Winn added: “As I’ve explained many times in my books, we will always be grateful that Moth’s version of CBS is indolent, its slow progression has allowed us time to discover how walking helps him. Others aren’t so lucky.”

PSPA, a charity that supports people with CBD, said it “terminated” its relationship with the family in light of The Observer investigation.

“The last few days have been some of the hardest of my life,” Winn wrote. “Heartbreaking accusations that Moth has made up his illness have been made, leaving us devastated.”

She explained the differences in names by stating that she had long been known as Raynor because she disliked her name Sally Ann, and Moth was simply short for Timothy.

Winn called The Observer article “grotesquely unfair” and “highly misleading”, adding that it “seeks to systematically pick apart my life”.

Winn said: “The Salt Path is about what happened to Moth and me, after we lost our home and found ourselves homeless on the headlands of the south-west.

“It’s not about every event or moment in our lives, but rather about a capsule of time when our lives moved from a place of complete despair to a place of hope.

“The journey held within those pages is one of salt and weather, of pain and possibility. And I can’t allow any more doubt to be cast on the validity of those memories, or the joy they have given so many.”

The Salt Path’s publisher Penguin said that it “undertook all the necessary due diligence” before publishing Winn’s book in 2018.

Producers of the film, released in the UK only weeks ago, have said they had no knowledge of the concerns.

Horner speaks out after shock Red Bull F1 sacking

Christian Horner has been relieved of his duties as Red Bull’s Formula One team principal.

The Red Bull chief had led the team since its inception in 2005, guiding them to six constructors’ titles and eight drivers’ championships. However, just one year after a personal scandal involving alleged “inappropriate behaviour” with a female colleague – an accusation Horner was cleared of twice – the 51-year-old lost his job on Wednesday morning.

Horner, who is married to Spice Girl pop star Geri Halliwell, has been replaced by Laurent Mekies as CEO of Red Bull Racing. Mekies was previously the team principal at sister team Racing Bulls. Red Bull CEO of Corporate Projects and Investments, Oliver Mintzlaff, said in a statement: “We would like to thank Christian Horner for his exceptional work over the last 20 years. With his tireless commitment, experience, expertise and innovative thinking, he has been instrumental in establishing Red Bull Racing as one of the most successful and attractive teams in Formula 1. Thank you for everything, Christian, and you will forever remain an important part of our team history.”

Red Bull endured a race to forget at the British Grand Prix on Sunday, and the team are now a distant fourth in the constructors’ standings, but this announcement still comes as a shock to the team at Milton Keynes and the whole F1 paddock. Horner was the longest-serving team boss in F1 and guided Red Bull to 124 grand prix victories during his time in charge.

Max Verstappen, who won all four of his world titles under Horner at Red Bull, posted on Instagram: “From my first race win, to four world championships, we have shared incredible successes. Winning memorable races and breaking countless records. Thank you for everything, Christian!”

Follow all the latest updates on this breaking news story below

Latest Tory defection to Reform leaves only one question for Badenoch

The defection of Sir Jake Berry, a former Tory chairman, to Reform was a genuine shock last night.

As Kemi Badenoch prepared to give a major speech just hours later on welfare reform, it left her looking increasingly lost and irrelevant.

Already, there were questions over why she had chosen today of all days to deliver a major speech when the news was very much focused on migration and the mini summit between Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, who would be grabbing the attention.

But with Sir Jake’s defection, there would only ever be one subject anybody would ask her about at her press conference: “Who is leaving next?”

While he was not the first ex-Tory MP to be converted to Nigel Farage’s cause, he is without doubt the most substantial and significant to do so. And he will not be the last.

He also represented a very different type of Conservative to join Reform. Previously, figures such as Lee Anderson, Marco Longhi, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, David Jones and Anne Marie Morris were all on the hardcore Brexiteer right wing of the party, but that is not the case with Sir Jake.

Last time he spoke to The Independent, he was at the launch event for Tom Tugendhat’s leadership bid. Tugendhat supposedly represented the type of Tories who would rather vote Lib Dem than Farage.

Sir Jake had been a Remainer during the Brexit referendum; he was also a Boris Johnson loyalist and served under Liz Truss. He was essentially a career politician, someone who was an MP for 14 years, sought ministerial office, was not on the right of the party and had been a Tory for 30 years.

His admission, “I know what was wrong, I was there”, as he defected, was a pretty scathing attack on his former party.

A friend of Sir Jake’s messaged The Independent last night to say: “He followed his heart”.

A cynic might suggest that his heart was telling him he wanted to be an MP again, and winning back the seat he lost last year would be more easily achieved by standing for Reform.

But this does mark a significant moment. If Farage is now attracting career politicians and not just the ideologues, then the mood is changing.

Sir Jake’s departure tells people, more than any other defection, that the centre-right party is most likely to win Reform led by Farage. Even Sir Keir Starmer is calling them the real opposition.

That makes the Tories irrelevant and a bit like the Liberals in the 1920s, with the emergence of Labour, look like they are a dying and soon-to-be minor fringe party.

Certainly, it is hard to find a member of Ms Badenoch’s top team in her shadow cabinet or many Tory MPs who are up for the fight. Apart from Robert Jenrick and a few others, not many of them are making headlines.

The snarky response from a CCHQ (Conservative Campaign Headquarters) source to say Berry “had more positions than the Kama Sutra, and is now living proof that Reform will take anyone” has also angered several Tories who are currently wavering about joining Reform.

Sir Jake was well-liked and had founded and led the influential Northern Research Group of Tory MPs.

Another ex-Tory MP messaged The Independent in the wake of his announcement to say they were “close” to defecting too.

They said: “I hate CCHQ with every fibre.”

There is another serious point. Getting people like Sir Jake helps Reform professionalise. He is a very strong campaigner and organiser who can teach them about setting up ground campaigns and using data. Berry brings expertise that is currently lacking in Reform.

Meanwhile, though, as the news agenda goes on to small boats and Farage is parading his latest recruit, nobody really wants to hear a speech by Kemi Badenoch on welfare. Wrong speech, wrong time, wrong circumstances again for a Tory leader who cannot catch a break.

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Threat of Iranian attacks on UK now the same as Russia

The threat of physical attacks by Iran on the UK now matches that of Russia, a watchdog has warned.

Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee said the threat from Iran has increased “significantly” since 2022 and was “persistent” and “unpredictable”, in a report published on Thursday.

Citing examples of 15 attempted murders or kidnappings of British nationals or UK residents by Iran, the committee said the physical threat posed by the country is “comparable with the threat posed by Russia”.

Committee chairman Lord Beamish warned that Iran has “a high appetite for risk when conducting offensive activity” on foreign soil. “Its intelligence services are ferociously well-resourced with significant areas of asymmetric strength,” he said.

Lord Beamish said the committee was particularly concerned about the rise in physical threats against dissidents and other opponents of the Iranian regime in the UK, with assassination used as “an instrument of state policy”.

It comes after hundreds of MPs and peers, including ex-Labour leader Lord Kinnock, called on Sir Keir to ban Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after three Iranian men were charged with spying in London.

A letter, seen by The Independent, read: “Appeasing this faltering regime betrays democratic values, emboldens its repressive policies, and undermines global security as Tehran continues its nuclear ambitions and terrorism.”

Lord Beamish’s committee urged the government to consider whether it was “legally possible and practicable” to proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist organisation and make a full statement to Parliament on the issue.

The report also warned that the nuclear threat from Iran had increased since the US pulled out of a key international agreement in 2018, arguing de-escalation “must be a priority”.

The review from the nine-member committee, which scrutinises the work of Britain’s intelligence agencies, only covers the period up to August 2023, with its publication delayed by last year’s election.

From the beginning of 2022 and the end of the committee’s evidence-gathering in August 2023, the report found there had been at least 15 attempts by Iran to murder or kidnap British nationals or UK residents.

The committee urged the government to make clear to Tehran that such attempts would “constitute an attack on the UK and would receive the appropriate response”.

Lord Beamish added: “Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UK, UK nationals and UK interests.

“As the committee was told, Iran is there across the full spectrum of all the kinds of threats we have to be concerned with.”

Since August 2023, the international picture has changed with the outbreak of war following Hamas‘s attack on Israel in October of that year.

The war has seen Iranian proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah weakened, while last month the US and Israel carried out air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities over concerns Tehran was close to developing a nuclear weapon.

But the committee insisted that, despite these changes, its recommendations remained “relevant”.

The committee warned that, while Iran had neither developed a nuclear weapon nor decided to produce one by August 2023, it had taken steps towards that goal in recent years.

It found that Iran had been “broadly compliant” with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that limited its nuclear ambitions.

But since the US, under Donald Trump, withdrew from the deal in 2018, the threat of a nuclear Iran had increased, and Tehran “had the capability to arm in a relatively short period”.

It also warned that the UK remained a target for Iranian espionage, which it found was “narrower in scope and scale” and “less sophisticated” than the threat from Russia and China.

And while Iran had engaged in political interference activity, it said this had had “a negligible effect”.

But the report cautioned that Iran-backed cultural and educational centres, such as the Islamic Centre of England, could be being used to “promote violent and extremist ideology”.

The committee said it was also “essential” to “raise the resilience bar” on cybersecurity across the UK in the face of Iran’s willingness to carry out digital attacks.

Regarding the government’s response to the Iranian threat, the committee warned that policy had “suffered from a focus on crisis management” over Iran’s nuclear programme and lacked “longer-term thinking”.

It also criticised a “lack of Iran-specific expertise”, saying there was “seemingly no interest in building a future pipeline of specialists”.

One witness told the committee: “If you have people running policy in the Foreign Office who don’t speak a word of Persian, then that is a fat lot of good.”

The committee also noted that the UK had sanctioned 508 individuals and 1,189 individuals relating to Iran by August 2023, but urged the government to reconsider whether sanctions “will in practice deliver behavioural change or in fact unhelpfully push Iran towards China”.

But it welcomed the decision to place Iran in the “enhanced tier” of the new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, placing extra burdens on people acting on Tehran’s behalf in the UK.

Caster Semenya wins appeal as sex eligibility case set to return to court

Track and field athlete Caster Semenya‘s right to a fair hearing was violated by the Swiss judicial system, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled.

The 34-year-old has been unable to compete in her favoured 800 metres event since 2019, following the introduction of limits on testosterone levels for female athletes by World Athletics.

Semenya was legally identified as female at birth but has a condition which means her body naturally produces higher levels of testosterone than women without the condition.

She was unsuccessful in challenging World Athletics’ rules at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the Swiss federal court, but in July 2023 a lower chamber of the ECHR found her rights had been violated by the Swiss government because it had failed to provide sufficient safeguards for her complaint to be examined effectively.

The Swiss government referred the case to the ECHR’s Grand Chamber in November 2023 and on Thursday morning, it was announced its judges had found by a 15 to two majority that Semenya’s rights under Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights – the right to a fair hearing – had been violated.

A press release issued by the court said the judges had found the Swiss courts had “fallen short” in providing what they felt should have been a “rigorous judicial review that was commensurate with the seriousness of the personal rights at issue”.

The ECHR ruling, which cannot be appealed, should mean the case returns to the Swiss federal court.

The Grand Chamber ruled by a majority of 13 to four that complaints under Article 8 (right to respect for private life), Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) were inadmissible. It found Semenya did not fall within Switzerland’s jurisdiction in respect of those complaints.

Seema Patel, an associate professor specialising in sports law at the Nottingham Law School, had said prior to the Semenya decision being handed down that it would be a “pivotal moment for how sport engages with human rights in its rule making”.

World Athletics has not been a party to either of the ECHR proceedings but at the time of the 2023 ruling by the lower chamber it said it stood by its rules on lowering testosterone, describing them as “a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the female category”.

Earlier this year, track and field’s global governing body strengthened its rules in this area further when its ruling council approved the introduction of cheek swab tests to determine biological sex.

The introduction of these tests are designed to ensure only athletes found to be biologically female can compete in the female category, effectively barring transgender women and some athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD).

Semenya’s legal team and World Athletics have been contacted for comment following the Grand Chamber ruling.

PA