Ukrainian post-graduate student Pavlo Lapshyn will appear before the judges of the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, known as the Old Bailey, in London on Thursday, July 25, on charges of terrorism and the murder of an 82-year-old Briton, Mohammed Saleem, the British media have reported.

As reported, Westminster Magistrates Court in London held a 10-minute hearing of Lapshyn's case on July 13. The defendant spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth. According to the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine, he has refused the assistance of Ukrainian diplomats.

In court, the prosecution said that Lapshyn caused explosions near mosques in cities of Walsall, Tipton and Wolverhampton in June and July. They claim he began preparing for terrorist acts immediately on arrival in the country on April 24. He purchased batteries, a lunch bag, clock and green container for making an explosive device. The Ukrainian allegedly visited West Midlands to identify where explosive devices should be placed, purchased chemicals via the Internet to use to make explosive devices, and modified mobile phones to act as detonators for the explosive devices.

On July 18, West Midlands Police arrested two Ukrainian men, Pavlo Lapshyn, 25 and Denys Nehreba, 22, in Birmingham on suspicion of their involvement in explosions near mosques in Walsall, Tipton and Wolverhampton. Nehreba was soon released without charge and is a witness in the case. On July 20, the police said that Lapshyn was also suspected of murdering Birmingham pensioner Mohammed Saleem.

Lapshyn, a post-graduate student at the National Metallurgy Academy of Ukraine at Dnipropetrovsk arrived in Britain as an information technology trainee for software company Delcam after having won an engineering project contest.

According to the report, British detectives left for Ukraine on Tuesday morning to continue their investigations into the suspect's background.

Saleem died after being stabbed three times in the back as he walked home from his local mosque in Small Heath, Birmingham, on April 29.

Remnants of a homemade explosive device were found outside the Aisha mosque in Walsall on June 22.

An explosive device went off in Tipton on July 12 scattering debris, including nails. No one was hurt in the explosion.

On July 18, counter-terrorism police found debris from an explosion near Wolverhampton Central Mosque. The area was searched after the arrest of the two suspects.

At the same time, the Ukrainian newspaper Segodnya quotes Lapshyn's friends and acquaintances who claim that he is not guilty.

"Pavlo is a modest young man. He is rather a pacifist by belief. He is not very religious. He is a quiet, calm boy. All of us were very happy when he went to Britain. Everything that has happened is a misunderstanding, and I hope that everything will clear up soon," the newspaper quoted Lapshyn's acquaintance Volodymyr Kashakov as saying.