Police on Tuesday charged a 20-year-old man with an offense underneath Britain's 1842 Treason Act after arresting him armed with a crossbow at Windsor Citadel as Queen Elizabeth II spent Christmas Day there.
Jaswant Singh Chail, from Southampton in southern England, has additionally been charged with making threats to kill and possession of an offensive weapon following the incident on the citadel, southwest of London, final 12 months.
He's at present in custody and can seem at Westminster Magistrates' Court docket within the British capital on August 17, London's Metropolitan Police mentioned.
"The CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) has licensed the Metropolitan Police to cost Jaswant Singh Chail with offenses after he was arrested within the grounds of Windsor Citadel on 25 December 2021 carrying a crossbow," Nick Worth of the CPS, which oversees prosecutions in England and Wales, mentioned.
"This resolution has been made following an investigation carried out by the Met's Counter Terrorism Command," he added.
Chail has been charged underneath a bit of the Treason Act, which makes it an offense to assault the Queen, or have a firearm or offensive weapon in her presence with intent to injure or alarm her, or to trigger a breach of peace.
This can be very uncommon for costs to be introduced underneath this explicit 180-year-old treason regulation.
Within the final case, Briton Marcus Sarjeant was sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment in 1981 after pleading responsible to firing clean pictures on the monarch when she was on parade.
Nonetheless, William Joyce -- also referred to as Lord Haw Haw, who collaborated with Germany throughout World Battle II -- was the final individual to be convicted underneath the separate and extra severe 1351 Treason Act.
Following the Windsor Citadel incident, the Met mentioned that safety processes had been triggered inside moments of the breach and that the person didn't enter any buildings.
It occurred because the Queen spent a low-key Christmas Day on the citadel along with her eldest son and inheritor to the throne, Prince Charles, and his spouse Camilla.
The Queen often celebrates Christmas at her Sandringham property in japanese England, however she remained in Windsor final 12 months as a precautionary measure amid resurgent Covid-19 circumstances.
Though the intruder was intercepted rapidly, it recalled an earlier, extra severe intrusion in 1982.
On that event, a person in his 30s entered Queen Elizabeth's non-public chambers at Buckingham Palace whereas she was in mattress earlier than police apprehended him.
Final summer time, a person was arrested after scaling the gates of the Palace.
In 2020, a homeless man scaled its partitions and bedded down for the evening in its grounds earlier than being caught.
© 2022 AFP
