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Police say dozens of people and organizations could be charged over deadly 2017 London fire

LONDON (AP) — British police said Tuesday they will ask prosecutors to consider charging 57 people and 20 organizations with criminal offenses over the Grenfell Tower blaze, almost a decade after the deadliest fire in Britain’s modern history killed dozens.

The Metropolitan Police said files of evidence will be submitted to prosecutors by the end of September, with charging decisions by June 14, 2027 — the tenth anniversary of the London tragedy, which killed 72 people.

Bereaved families and survivors said justice delayed any further would be unacceptable. A damning public inquiry has found that the deaths were avoidable, and that a combination of dishonest companies, incompetent regulators and failures by government led the building to be covered in combustible external cladding.

“We have waited almost a decade for accountability,” said Grenfell United, a group representing some bereaved families. “No family should have to wait over 10 years for justice for their loved ones, if it comes at all.”

Police said the offenses being considered include corporate gross negligence manslaughter, fraud and health and safety breaches.

It said officers had gathered 165 million electronic files and looked at the role of 15,000 individuals and 700 organizations relevant to the investigation, making it the largest and most complex inquiry the force has ever carried out.

The fire at Grenfell Tower broke out in the early hours of June 14, 2017, in a fourth-floor apartment and raced up the 25-story public housing building like a lit fuse, fueled by flammable cladding panels on the exterior walls. It was the worst fire disaster in Britain since World War II, and the victims included retirees and 18 children.

The public inquiry in 2024 said companies that made the tower’s cladding used cheap and unsafe materials and engaged in “systematic dishonesty,” and that the failures were exacerbated by complacent officials who did not adequately enforce safety standards.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
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