LONDON (AP) – British police said Saturday that six more people have been charged with violent disorder at a protest over the stabbing death of a university student who was handcuffed by officers as he lay dying.
Police were pelted with chairs, cans, rocks and flares on Tuesday by some of the hundreds of people attending a protest in the English southern coastal city of Southampton, where 18-year-old Henry Nowak was killed in December.
Many in Britain and beyond were angered by police body-worn video showing Nowak being handcuffed moments before he became unconscious and subsequently died.
Nowak’s death has spurred heated debates about policing, race and knife crime in the U.K. Nowak’s killer, Vickrum Digwa, who is Sikh, falsely claimed to police that he was the victim of a racist assault by Nowak, who was white. When police officers arrived, they initially treated the wounded man as a suspect before noticing his injury and trying to resuscitate him.
Digwa, 23, was convicted of murder for stabbing Nowak with a Sikh dagger and sentenced this week to life in prison with a minimum 21-year term. But the case has been seized on by anti-immigration activists and politicians, who claim there is bias against white people in the justice system.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called the street violence in reaction to the case “disgraceful and completely unacceptable. Authorities have urged the public to heed a call by Nowak’s family not to use his death to stir up violence and disorder.
In total, police said, 11 people have been charged with disorder at the Southampton protest this week.
On Friday, Starmer’s office condemned comments by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who blamed immigration for Nowak’s death. Vance said in a post on social platform X that there should be “righteous anger” in response to the murder, which he blamed in part on “the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.”
In a statement issued in response to Vance’s comments, Starmer’s office criticized people “trying to interfere in our democracy and seeking to stir up division on our streets.”