Alexander Martin reports:
Two British teenagers charged with Computer Misuse Act offenses over a cyberattack on Transport for London (TfL) last year pleaded not guilty during a court appearance on Friday.
Thalha Jubair, 19, and Owen Flowers, 18, were arrested at their homes in East London and Walsall, respectively, by officers from the National Crime Agency (NCA) in September. They appeared at London’s Southwark Crown Court on Friday to enter their pleas.
Flowers had initially been arrested over the transit agency attack in September 2024, but released on bail. Both men were remanded into custody following the most recent arrest.
The NCA said following Flowers’ arrest in 2024 that its officers discovered additional potential evidence that the suspect had been involved in attacks against U.S. healthcare companies.
Read more at The Record.
The U.S. Department of Justice has been curiously silent on Flowers’ U.K. case, which also charges that Flowers conspired with others to infiltrate and damage SSM Health Care Corporation and attempted to do the same to Sutter Health. Both are U.S. healthcare entities, and Flowers has pleaded not guilty to those charges in the U.K. court, so it may be that he will be tried in the U.K. on those charges and not extradited here to stand trial on those charges. A check of PACER finds no publicly available court filings involving Flowers.
Charges against Jubair were unsealed by the U.S. Department of Justice in September.
Neil Henderson of BBC reports that Judge Christopher Hehir has set a trial date of June 8, 2026 for the two men. The hearing is expected to last between four and six weeks. In the interim, both Jubair and Flowers continue to be held on remand.