British Firebomber Sentenced to 5 Years

A man who was photographed holding a firebomb in a riot in Britain’s second-largest city last year was jailed for five years Monday.

The picture showed James Hazell, 32, carrying a firebomb that he later threw into a building supply shop. It was widely published in the British press at the time of the riots in Birmingham’s district of Handsworth in September, 1985.

Two people were killed and scores of buildings were burned down in three days of riots, the worst inner-city violence Britain had experienced for four years.

Hazell was identified from the photographs by police and a woman who knew him.