Man charged over suspected anti-Muslim attacks in UK's Edinburgh

Scottish authorities said on Saturday they charged a man in connection with attacks in Edinburgh that wounded five people with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying the suspect “appears to be motivated by anti-Muslim hatred”.

Police Scotland said officers had arrested a 36-year-old white Scottish man and there was “no further threat to the public”.

“A 36-year-old man has been charged in connection with a number of incidents which took place in Edinburgh on Friday, June 19, 2026,” police said late on Saturday.

“A report has been submitted to the Procurator Fiscal, and the individual will appear at court in due course.”

Footage posted online showed a bare-chested man, believed to be the suspect, roaming the streets of the Scottish capital with a large weapon.

A police statement said they received multiple emergency calls late on Friday from people reporting “violent attacks including threats, robbery and vandalism across Edinburgh, with five men injured”.

The victims, two aged 22, and others aged 24, 27, and 39, sustained various injuries, police said. Three were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, the statement said, adding the incident is being investigated by the counter-terrorism unit and other police officers.

Politicians in London and Scotland condemned the incidents.

“Absolutely appalling,” Starmer said on X.

“The suspect appears to be motivated by anti-Muslim hatred. I will not tolerate this — he will face the full force of the law.”

Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney said he was “deeply concerned” in a post on X.

“There is no place for violence, racism or intolerance in our country,” he added.

‘Should concern everyone’

Both the Scottish Association of Mosques and the anti-Islamophobia non-profit Muslim Engagement and Development (Mend) said several of the victims were Muslims.

Mend noted the alleged footage of the arrested man circulating online also showed him shouting about “protecting the country” from Muslims, accompanied by expletive-filled language.

The organisation urged police to “treat this as what the evidence indicates: Islamophobic, far-right terror”.

The mosques association noted: “In recent days we have seen calls for anti-migrant protests circulating online, alongside increasingly aggressive rhetoric directed at minority communities.

“These developments should concern everyone, regardless of faith or background.”

The incident comes as immigration and diversity in the UK takes the spotlight, with claims that far-right agitators are fuelling racist sentiment, after a number of reported high-profile incidents in the region.

The Northern Irish capital Belfast experienced two nights of disorder last week after a knife attack, allegedly perpetrated by a Sudanese refugee, was captured on camera and went viral online.

There were also violent skirmishes between protesters and police the previous week in Southampton, in southern England, over the handling of the murder of young white student Henry Nowak by a British Sikh man.

Detailing Friday night’s incidents, Police Scotland said two men were initially injured in a west Edinburgh suburb and taken to hospital.

The BBC said it understood the attacks began near a mosque.

Three other men were subsequently attacked elsewhere, suffering different injuries, before officers confronted and arrested the suspect, police said.