A 38-year-old man has been charged with criminal damage after graffiti was sprayed on the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, police said.
The Metropolitan Police said Caspar San Giorgio, of no fixed address, was arrested shortly after 4am on Friday.
He was taken into custody and charged just before 4am on Saturday.
Police said he is due to appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court on Saturday morning.
The graffiti branded the former prime minister a ‘Zionist war criminal’, with other phrases including ‘Stop the Genocide’ and ‘Free Palestine‘ sprayed in red paint on the bronze sculpture.
Further graffiti read ‘Never again is Now’ and ‘Globalise the Intifada’.
Police said on Friday afternoon San Giorgio had also been arrested on suspicion of supporting proscribed organisation Palestine Action.
Churchill’s statue, located only metres from the Houses of Parliament, was vandalised in the early hours of Friday morning
Dutch group Free the Filton 24 claimed responsibility for the action on Friday morning, posting a video on Instagram appearing to show the incident in progress.
Free the Filton 24 defines itself as a group of ‘family and friends’ of the 24 Palestine Action activists who were charged over a break-in at one of Israel-based defence firm Elbit’s UK sites in 2024.
On Friday, a Greater London Authority spokesperson said: ‘We are appalled by this vandalism to the statue of Sir Winston Churchill and work is under way to remove the graffiti as quickly as possible.’
Downing Street also commented on the vandalism of the statue, labelling it ‘completely abhorrent’.
A Number 10 spokesman said: ‘Churchill was a great Briton. This Government will always stand up for our values and the perpetrator must be held to account.’
