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    Chris Brown Released on $6 Million Bail by London Court

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    The R&B singer was charged last week with grievous bodily harm over a 2023 incident in England. His release from custody means he can proceed with a world tour.Chris Brown, the R&B singer, has been freed from custody by a London judge as he awaits a court case over accusations of an assault in a nightclub.Mr. Brown, 36, was arrested last week at a hotel in Manchester, England, and charged with grievous bodily harm.The singer is accused of attacking a music producer with a tequila bottle at Tape London, a nightclub in the Mayfair district, on Feb. 19, 2023.Lawyers representing Mr. Brown applied for him to be bailed at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court in South London on Wednesday, and London’s Metropolitan Police said the application had been granted.The judge’s decision means that Mr. Brown will be able to perform on an international tour that is scheduled to begin in Amsterdam on June 8. He is then set to visit European countries including Germany, Britain, Ireland, France and Portugal before traveling to the United States.The BBC reported that the judge, Tony Baumgartner, imposed a series of conditions on Mr. Brown, including that he must surrender his passport when not on tour and stay away from Tape London.Mr. Brown’s representatives agreed to pay into the court a security fee of five million pounds ($6.7 million), which can be forfeited if any of the conditions are breached.He has not yet been asked to enter a plea in the case, and British law bans the reporting of any details that could prejudice a jury at a future trial.Omololu Akinlolu, 38, an American rapper who performs under the name HoodyBaby, was charged with grievous bodily harm two days after Mr. Brown, in relation to the same incident.Mr. Brown and Mr. Akinlolu are scheduled to appear at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court on June 20. More

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      Three Iranians Accused of Targeting People in Britain

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      The charges against the men come as concerns have grown about Iranian operatives carrying out operations against British residents and citizens.Three Iranian men appeared in court on Saturday in London, accused of helping Iran’s intelligence service by targeting individuals in Britain.Mostafa Sepahvand, 39; Farhad Javadi Manesh, 44; and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 55, have been charged under Britain’s National Security Act with engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service between Aug. 14 last year and Feb. 16.They are also accused of carrying out surveillance and reconnaissance as part of a plan to commit serious violence against an individual, who was not identified.The arrests come amid growing concern about efforts by Iranian operatives to target British citizens and residents.The Metropolitan Police said in a statement that the men had been arrested and detained on May 3. “The foreign state to which the charges relate is Iran,” the statement added.The BBC reported that the three had been accused of targeting journalists working for Iran International, an independent, Persian-language broadcaster based in London that has been critical of the Iranian government.All three defendants, who live in London, had illegally entered Britain between 2016 and 2022, and two were among the thousands who have traveled to the country on small boats from France.“The charges that have been laid against these three individuals must now take their course through the criminal justice system, and nothing must be done to prejudice the outcome of those proceedings,” Yvette Cooper, Britain’s home secretary, said in a statement.“But we will also take separate action to address the very serious wider issues raised by this case,” Ms. Cooper added. “The police have confirmed that the foreign state to which these charges relate is Iran, and Iran must be held to account for its actions.”Thanking the police, Ms. Cooper said, “We will not tolerate growing state threats on our soil.”In a speech last year, Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, identified Iran as a country of growing concern to the counterterrorism police. He said that since January 2022, the security services had been investigating 20 Iranian-backed plots that posed potentially lethal threats to British citizens and residents. More

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      British Police Arrest Iranian Nationals in Counterterrorism Investigations

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      Seven Iranians were among eight men arrested in two investigations. Some of the detained were accused of preparing a terrorist attack on an unnamed site.British counterterrorism officers have arrested eight men, including seven Iranian nationals, in connection with two separate investigations London’s Metropolitan Police said on Sunday.In one of the cases, four Iranians and another man whose nationality has yet to be determined were detained on Saturday on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act against a single site.“The investigation relates to a suspected plot to target a specific premises,” the police said in a statement issued early Sunday. The police added that the site was not being named “for operational reasons.”Dominic Murphy, the head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, said the investigation was “fast-moving” and that police were “working closely with those at the affected site to keep them updated.”He added: “The investigation is still in its early stages and we are exploring various lines of inquiry to establish any potential motivation as well as to identify whether there may be any further risk to the public linked to this matter.”The police said that two of the Iranian nationals were aged 29, one was 46 and the other 40. They were arrested in London and Swindon, about 80 miles west of the capital, and in Stockport and Rochdale in the northwest. The other man was arrested in the Manchester area.In a later statement, the police said that three Iranians, aged 39, 44 and 55, were detained at separate locations in London on Saturday but that those arrests were not connected to the other investigation.“All three men have been taken into custody and searches continue at the three addresses,” the police said. They added that the men were detained under the National Security Act 2023, which was introduced to tighten protections against hostile acts against Britain.Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, described the arrests as “serious events that demonstrate the ongoing requirement to adapt our response to national security threats.”She added: “The government continues to work with police and intelligence agencies to support all the action and security assessments that are needed to keep the country safe.”Further details of the type of plots being investigated were not given.In a speech last year, Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, identified Iran was as a country of growing concern to counterterrorism police. He said that, since January 2022, the security services had responded to 20 Iranian-backed plots that posed potentially lethal threats to British citizens and residents.Mr. McCallum cited as an example the jailing of a man last December for reconnaissance of what was then the headquarters of Iran International, a Persian-language opposition TV channel that operates from Britain.Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said that the government “will obviously keep the public updated as we can,” but added: “given these are live investigations it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment further.” More

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      London Police Should Not Have Hired Officer Who Killed Woman, Inquiry Finds

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      Troubling information about the past of the man who killed Sarah Everard in 2021, a case that shook Britain, should have prevented him from joining the force, a long-awaited report said.An inquiry published Thursday into the murder of a young woman three years ago by a London police officer — a case that rattled Britain and set off a broader reckoning in the country about violence against women — has found that the police force missed signs of a troubling past that should have prevented him from being hired.The woman, Sarah Everard, 33, was abducted, raped and murdered in March 2021 by Wayne Couzens, a member of London’s Metropolitan Police Service. Mr. Couzens was later sentenced to life in prison for the killing.Ms. Everard’s murder cast a spotlight on how bad behavior and violence against women had been allowed to thrive within the country’s police ranks, prompting soul-searching and demands to improve the processes of hiring and overseeing officers.“It is time for all those in policing to do everything they can to improve standards of recruitment, vetting and investigation,” Elish Angiolini, a lawyer who led the inquiry, said at a news conference. “Wayne Couzens was never fit to be a police officer. Police leaders need to be sure there isn’t another Couzens operating in plain sight.”The inquiry found that Mr. Couzens’ initial vetting when he applied to join the Metropolitan Police Service in 2018 had been deeply flawed, missing available information, including on troubling incidents when he served in another police force in Kent, in southeast England. The information was overlooked when Mr. Couzens applied to work in London in 2018 and again when he applied for a specialized firearms role the next year, the inquiry found.Earlier reports included a concerning use of pornography, an indecent exposure allegation that was never acted upon by the authorities and an incident, which the inquiry did not detail, in which he was reported missing from his home.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More