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Russia-Ukraine live updates: Six children among 45 people killed in Dnipro missile strike

January 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — More than 10 months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion into neighboring Ukraine, the two countries are engaged in a struggle for control of areas throughout eastern and southern Ukraine.

Putin’s forces in November pulled out of key positions, retreating from Kherson as Ukrainian troops led a counteroffensive targeting the city. Russian drones have continued bombarding civilian targets throughout Ukraine, knocking out critical power infrastructure as winter sets in.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Jan 17, 12:39 PM EST
Death toll from Dnipro missile attack rises to 45: Mayor

The death toll from Saturday’s missile attack on an apartment building in Dnipro has risen to 45, including six children, according to Borys Filatov, the city’s mayor.

The search and rescue operations have ended, according to the emergency services.

In addition to the fatalities, there were 79 people wounded, including 16 children, according to emergency services.

Thirty-nine people were rescued from the rubble, including six children, emergency services said.

-ABC News’ William Gretsky

Jan 16, 4:56 PM EST
Ukrainian soldiers arrive in US for Patriot missile training

Ukrainian soldiers arrived in the United States on Sunday to begin training on the Patriot air defense missile system at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, a U.S. military official said.

The training at Fort Sill is expected to last several months, and then switch briefly to Europe, officials said.

-ABC News’ Luis Martinez

Jan 16, 4:33 PM EST
39 people, including 6 children, rescued from rubble in Dnipro

Emergency crews have rescued 39 people, including six children, who were buried under the rubble caused by a missile strike on a high-rise apartment complex in Dnipro over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his Monday evening address.

The death toll remains at 40, including three children, he said.

The Kremlin denied being responsible for the attack, saying Russia doesn’t strike residential areas and claiming the destruction was a result of Ukrainian air defense.

“The debris of the house destroyed by the Russian missile is still being dismantled in Dnipro,” Zelenskyy said. “I thank everyone who is carrying out this rescue operation. Every employee of the State Emergency Service and police, every doctor, every volunteer. Everyone who is involved.”

-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman

Jan 16, 4:09 PM EST
Civilian survivors speak out after missile strike in Dnipro

Emergency workers were still looking for survivors Monday following a strike on a high-rise apartment building on Saturday in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

The death toll rose to 40 dead, including three children, making it the deadliest strike on a residential area in Ukraine in the last three months.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “Russian terror,” saying Ukraine was “fighting for every person, every life” under in rubble in Dnipro and would “find everyone involved in this terror.”

The attack on an apartment building destroyed 72 units and wounded 75 residents.

Rescuers have been using cranes to remove chunk after chunk of rubble, looking for survivors.

One of the survivors, Yevgeni, told ABC News that he was in his bed when the missile struck his apartment.

“I can’t understand. I didn’t hear any bang, any voice, any sound of the missile,” said Yevgeni, adding that he suffered a head injury and that his broken window frame fell on him.

He described seeing smoke and “a lot of dust” at the scene. He said “the most scary thing (was hearing) the voices of people screaming.”

Local resident Natali Nodykova told ABC News that a friend called her to tell her there was a bombing in her neighborhood.

“My son was alone at home and of course I was afraid,” Nodykova said.

Emergency workers rescued 39 people, Ukrainian officials said. Twelve people remained unaccounted for Monday.

The attack was caused by a Soviet-made Kh-22, a long-range missile used to take down aircraft carriers, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

The massive 13,000-pound missile causes huge amounts of casualties when used in civilian areas.

The Kremlin denied the attack, saying Russia doesn’t strike residential areas and claiming the destruction was a result of Ukrainian air defense.

The same type of weapon had been used in a previous attack on a shopping mall in the town of Kremenchuk back in July that killed 22 people, according to Ukrainian authorities.

-ABC News’ Ibtissem Guenfoud, Bruno Roeber, Oleksii Pshemyskiy, Matt Gutman and Max Uzol

Jan 16, 10:24 AM EST
Three children among 40 killed in Dnipro missile strike

The death toll climbed to 40 on Monday from a weekend missile strike on a high-rise apartment complex in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, according to Ukrainian officials.

At least three children were among those killed, officials said. Another 70 people were injured.

The death toll is expected to rise as 30 people remain unaccounted for, officials said.

On Saturday, a missile slammed into a block of high-rise apartment buildings in the central Dnipro. While Ukrainian officials blamed Russia for the strike, one of the deadliest attacks since the war began, the Kremlin denied Russia was involved.

“The Russian armed forces do not strike residential buildings or social infrastructure, they strike military targets,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday.

Jan 15, 3:40 PM EST
Survivor pulled from rubble in Dnipro as death toll rises

The death toll from a Russian missile strike on a block of high-rise apartment buildings in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro rose to 29 on Sunday.

Amidst the devastation, rescuers pulled one woman alive from the rubble on Sunday and officials said she was saved by a cocoon of concrete that surrounded her.

The survivor was rescued from a block of apartment buildings hit by a Russian missile on Saturday in the city about 500 miles southeast of the capital of Kyiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a child was among those killed in the Dnipro missile attack.

Despite Sunday’s rescue, emergency workers said the hope of finding more survivors is fading.

The rocket attack reduced part of a high-rise apartment building to a pile of rubble that was still smoldering on Sunday. Noxious fumes from burning couches, curtains and TVs emanated from the pile as firefighters sprayed water hoses on it and rescue workers dug through the debris with their bare hands, an ABC News crew in Dnipro reported.

In addition to the now 29 killed in the attack, more than 70 people were injured, Ukrainian officials said. The strike left hundreds of apartments uninhabitable, officials said.

Emergency crews brought in cranes Sunday to help move large pieces of debris.

As the rescue operation went on Sunday, periodic moments of silence were called for so rescuers could listen for cries for help from people feared missing in the rubble.

-ABC News’ Matt Gutman

Jan 14, 11:07 AM EST
5 killed, dozens hurt in attack in Dnipro

Five people were killed and at least 27 were wounded in a Russian attack in Dnipro in central Ukraine, according to the governor.

An apartment block was struck and at least two children are among the injured, according to the deputy head of the president’s office.

-ABC News’ Yulia Drozd

Jan 14, 9:27 AM EST
Kyiv under Russian missile attack Saturday morning

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said explosions occurred in different districts on both banks in the city on Saturday morning and, in one of the districts, fire broke out in a non-residential area.

There were no casualties as a result of the attack that happened at approximately 6 a.m. but 18 residential houses were damaged in the region, according to the governor Oleksiy Kuleba.

The spokesman for the Ukrainian Airborne Forces, Yuri Ignat, told ABC News that Ukrainian authorities think it could have possibly been a ballistic attack by Russia but could not confirm this.

“Most likely, these are missiles that flew along a ballistic trajectory from the north. Ballistics are not available for us to detect and shoot down,” Ignat said on Ukrainian television.

-ABC News’ Yulia Drozd

Jan 13, 4:02 PM EST
Russian forces claim to have taken Soledar

Russian military leaders claim their forces took over the salt-mining town of Soledar.

Video showed Russian soldiers evacuating civilians from Soledar and nearby villages to the city of Shakhtarsk as fighting took place on the outskirts on Friday.

Serhiy Cherevaty, the Ukrainian commander of the Eastern Group of Forces, however, confirmed that fighting was going on in the region but contested Russia’s claims about the status of the city in a statement to ABC News.

“We have a clear understanding of who controls which streets in the city, but I cannot reveal those details,” he told ABC News.

-ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman and Patrick Reevell

Jan 12, 1:51 PM EST
Pressure mounts on NATO countries to send tanks to Ukraine

Pressure is mounting for key NATO allies to send tanks to Ukraine.

After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, Polish President Andrzej Duda said his country plans to supply Leopard tanks to Ukraine but only as part of an “international coalition.”

“They will be provided within the coalition, because you know that it is necessary to obtain certain official consents. But first we need to build an international coalition and we have decided to form this international coalition,” Duda said.

Duda “expressed hope” other NATO countries would provide Ukraine with tanks as well.

The United Kingdom has not made a final decision on whether to send tanks to Ukraine, according to the spokesperson for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The United Kingdom is considering supplying Ukraine with the British Army’s Challenger 2 main battle tank, according to British media reports.

Germany is also facing pressure from Ukraine and other NATO allies to send tanks to Ukraine. So far, they have not committed to sending any tanks to the country and neither has the United States.

Germany and the United States have both agreed to supply Ukraine with armored carriers and the Patriot air defense system.

Jan 12, 12:52 PM EST
Russians, Ukrainians give conflicting views in the battle for Soledar

Russian and Ukrainian officials offered conflicting views Thursday on the battle being waged over the eastern Ukraine city of Soledar.

Both sides described their forces as making progress in the fight for the salt mining town in the Donbas region.

“Our defenders continue to hold their positions on the most difficult frontlines and in the battle for (the) Donbas,” said Hanna Maliar, the Ukrainian deputy of defense. “Today, fierce and heavy battles continue in the direction of Bakhmut, in the area of Soledar city.”

Despite the “difficult situation,” Ukrainian soldiers are desperately battling for control of Soledar, Maliar said.

“The enemy is suffering heavy losses, unsuccessfully trying to break through our defenses and capture Soledar,” Maliar said. “Today, the city’s approaches are literally littered with the bodies of Putin’s destroyed troops. Nevertheless, they move over the bodies of their fallen fighters. Our defenders show maximum resilience and heroism.”

But Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Russian forces and mercenaries from the Wagner private military company are doing a “truly colossal job” in Soledar.

“These are absolutely selfless, heroic deeds,” Peskov told journalists on Thursday.

Peskov said the hostilities in the region will continue.

“There is still a lot of work to be done. No time to stop, no time to rub our hands and so on. The main work is yet to come,” Peskov said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that Russia’s airborne units had blocked Soledar from the north and the south and assault teams were fighting within the town limits.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address on Wednesday that Ukrainian troops are holding onto Soledar.

“The terrorist state and its propagandists are trying to pretend” to have achieved some successes in Soledar, Zelenskyy said. “But the fighting continues.”

Jan 11, 4:51 PM EST
Russian shake-up as military chief in Ukraine replaced

Russia has replaced the military chief in charge in Ukraine, according to the Kremlin.

Army Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, will replace Sergei Surovikin, who has been commander of Russia’s forces in Ukraine for the past three months. Surovikin will become one of Gerasimov’s deputies, according to Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s minister of defense, who made the new appointments.

The changes come as the progress of the Russian forces in Ukraine continues to stall.

“The increase in the level of leadership of the special operation is linked to the expansion of the scale of the tasks at hand and the need to organize closer interaction between troops,” Shoigu said.

Jan 11, 12:17 PM EST
Ukrainians deny reports the city of Soledar on verge of falling to Russia

Ukrainian officials on Wednesday denied reports that the eastern Ukrainian city of Soledar is on the verge of being captured by Russian forces and claimed the battle for the city is ongoing.

The report contradicts British intelligence officials who on Tuesday said it appeared that Russian troops were close to capturing a salt mining town in an apparent attempt to cut off the enemy’s supply routes. The British officials said Russian forces, along with mercenaries from the Wagner private military company, were likely in control of the city of Soledar, which is about six miles north of Bakhmut in the Donbas region, where heavy fighting has been reported in recent days.

The head of the Wagner group also released a statement on Telegram Tuesday, saying his mercenaries were in control of Soledar.

But Ukrainian officials said Wednesday the city has not fallen into the hands of Russian forces and the Russian mercenary group.

“Russians say that it is under their control; it is not true,” said Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian eastern military command.

The Russian attack on Soledar is an apparent attempt to bypass Bakhmut from the north and disrupt Ukrainian supply routes, the British intelligence officials said. Part of the fighting is being waged near the entrances to the 124 miles of abandoned salt mine tunnels that run under the area.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the fighting in Soledar as “very difficult.”

Jan 10, 4:09 PM EST
Russia not ready to launch new offensive from Belarus: Ukrainian officials

Senior Ukrainian officials said Tuesday that they believe any prospect of Russia launching a new offensive toward Kyiv from Belarus is “not likely at this moment.”

The latest statement from Ukrainian officials contrasted with a series of interviews they gave last month in which they suggested Russia could mount an offensive early this year and even try to take Kyiv.

“Our assessment is that the Russians aren’t in a position to make an advance on Kyiv from Belarus. And if that were their intention, it wouldn’t happen for some time,” a senior Ukrainian official said Tuesday.

The Ukrainian officials added that the mere threat of an assault from Belarus means that Ukrainian forces are “fixed” along the Ukraine-Belarus border.

-ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge

Jan 10, 2:15 PM EST
Ukrainians set to begin Patriot air defense training in Oklahoma

As many as 100 Ukrainians troops will soon begin training on the Patriot air defense system at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, two U.S. officials told ABC News Tuesday.

Fort Sill is the main artillery school for the U.S. Army and where months-long training on Patriot systems already takes place.

Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, said the Ukrainians could begin training on the Patriot system as soon as next week.

“The training will prepare approximately 90 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers to operate, maintain and sustain the defensive system over a training course expected to last several months,” Ryder said.

Once deployed, the Patriot batteries will fortify Ukraine’s air defense capabilities and provide an additional way for the “Ukrainian people to defend themselves against Russia’s ongoing aerial assaults,” Ryder said.

Ryder would not give a precise time frame, but said that once the training is completed, the system will be sent to Ukraine to be put to use.

President Joe Biden announced last month that the United States will provide Ukraine with a Patriot missile defense system. The German government also agreed this month to supply Ukraine with a second Patriot missile battery.

-ABC News’ Matt Seyler

Jan 10, 1:30 PM EST
Russians on verge of overtaking eastern Ukrainian city

Russian troops were on the verge Tuesday of capturing a salt mining town in eastern Ukraine in an apparent attempt to cut off the enemy’s supply routes, according to British intelligence officials.

The Russian forces, along with mercenaries from the Wagner private military company, were likely in control of the city of Soledar, which is about six miles north of Bakhmut in the Donbas region, where heavy fighting has been reported in recent days, the British officials said.

The attack on Soledar is an apparent attempt to bypass Bakhmut from the north and disrupt Ukrainian supply routes, the British intelligence officials said. Part of the fighting is being waged near the entrances to the 124 miles of abandoned salt mine tunnels that run under the area.

Despite the increased pressure on Bakhmut, Russia is unlikely to be able to encircle the city in the near future because Ukrainian forces have created a stable line of defense and control supply routes in the area, the British officials said.

The Ukrainian Army said Russian troops carried out 86 artillery strikes on Soledar in a 24-hour period, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described the fighting there as “very difficult.”

National Hurricane Center issues rare January tropical weather outlook

January 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — The National Hurricane Center on Monday issued a rare tropical weather outlook for January: a strong, non-tropical low pressure system in the Atlantic Ocean.

The powerful storm, located about 300 miles north of Bermuda, will soon lose steam. It was unable to transition to a subtropical or tropical cyclone as it moved north on Monday.

This system was responsible for the blast of snow to coastal New England on Sunday and Monday. Parts of Massachusetts picked up 4.5 inches of snow. Boston, which has had a below-average snowfall this winter, got their biggest hit of snow with 3.5 inches.

It’s rare for an Atlantic storm to develop in January. Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. The most recent January hurricane was Alex in 2016, which reached Category 1 strength. Alex made landfall as a tropical storm in Portugal’s Azores islands.

The National Hurricane Center has issued a rare tropical weather outlook for January: a strong non-tropical low pressure system that had been churning in the Atlantic Ocean, about 300 miles north of Bermuda.

Death of American tourist in Mexico under investigation

January 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(MEXICO CITY) — Mexican authorities said Monday that the recent death of an American tourist appears to be “an unfortunate accident.”

U.S. citizen Elliot Blair died on Jan. 14 at Las Rocas Resort and Spa, located on the shores of Rosarito Beach, just south of Tijuana, along the western coast of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula. While investigators initially believed that Blair died from a fall, there is a specific injury on his forehead “that would not have been caused by a fall,” a local law enforcement official told ABC News on Monday.

However, the State Attorney General’s Office of Baja California later released a statement saying an autopsy established that Blair’s death “was the result of an unfortunate accident due to the fall of the deceased from a third floor.” The office said the investigation is ongoing and that it is in contact with U.S. authorities, who are sharing necessary information with Blair’s loved ones.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State told ABC News that they are aware of reports of the death of an American citizen in Rosarito Beach, Mexico. The State Department stands ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance, according to the spokesperson, who declined to comment further, citing respect to the family during this difficult time.

ABC News has also reached out to the FBI for comment.

Blair, a California resident and Orange County public defender, was staying at the Mexican resort with his wife to celebrate their first wedding anniversary on Jan. 15. He was found dead the day before, just hours after the couple had gone out for dinner and dancing, according to Los Angeles ABC station KABC-TV.

Blair’s wife, Kimberly Williams, is also an Orange County public defender. The Williams family said they have hired a private investigator, telling KABC that they “have reasons to believe, and evidence, that there was possible foul play” but don’t want to compromise the investigation.

A spokesperson from the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, Martin Schwarz, told KABC that Blair was a “devoted husband, terrific person and a fantastic lawyer who dedicated his life to serving his clients and helping the county’s most vulnerable.”

“He impacted countless lives and his loss will be felt deeply by all who knew him,” Schwarz added. “We have been in communication with the family and are doing what we can to support them in this difficult time, including working with local and federal officials to help provide them with answers.”

US citizen detained in Iran begins seven-day hunger strike

January 17, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — U.S. citizen Siamak Namazi has begun a seven-day hunger strike while urging President Joe Biden to do more to bring him and other American detainees in Iran back home.

Namazi began the strike Monday to mark the seventh anniversary of a prisoner swap with Iran that failed to free him.

“I now know that I shouldn’t get my hopes up when senior U.S. officials say that rescuing the hostages in Iran is their highest priority. Such well-intentioned statements can be repeated year after year without tangible results,” Namazi said in a letter to the president, according to his family’s lawyer. “Only the president of the United States has the power to bring us home, should he set his mind to do so.”

Namazi, 51, is classified as wrongfully detained by the U.S. government. He was arrested in 2015 on a business trip to Iran and accused of “colluding with an enemy state.”

Namazi wrote in the letter he now holds the “unenviable title of the longest-held Iranian-American hostage in history,” and that his captors enjoy taunting him because he has been “left behind” by multiple administrations.

“In the past, I implored you to reach for your moral compass and find the resolve to bring the U.S. hostages in Iran home. To no avail,” he wrote. “Not only do we remain Iran’s prisoners, but you have not so much as granted our families a meeting.”

In response to a request for comment from ABC News, a spokesperson from the State Department said officials were “aware” that Namazi had begun a hunger strike and had written to Biden.

“Our thoughts are with him and his family,” the spokesperson added. “Iran’s use of wrongful detention as political leverage is outrageous, and Iran should release our wrongfully detained citizens.”

The Obama administration secured the freedom of five Americans detained in Iran in early 2016 as part of negotiations tied to the implementation of the 2015 nuclear agreement between the two countries. Namazi, however, was not part of the deal.

In his letter to Biden, Namazi wrote that officials “unconscionably left me in peril” while promising to have him “safely home within weeks.”

“Yet seven years and two presidents later, I remain caged in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, holding that long overdue IOU,” he said.

Namazi was briefly allowed a furlough from Evin in October 2022, when his 85-year-old father — a United Nations official who was also unjustly held in Iran when he traveled there to attempt to visit his son — was allowed to journey outside the country for life-saving medical treatment. But the younger Namazi was soon arrested again by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

While Tehran’s motives for temporarily releasing Namazi remain unclear, the regime claimed that the reprieve should have prompted the U.S. to allow billions of dollars worth of assets locked under sanctions to be unfrozen, which the Biden administration refused to do.

Namazi’s brother said his family is “gravely concerned” for his health and “distraught that he has resorted to such measures,” but that they “understand his frustration with the seemingly unending horror he has faced and support his call on both Iran and the U.S. to finally reach a deal to secure the release of all the American hostages.”

‘Jailed over a group chat’: Use of drill music at UK trials sparks concerns of racism in justice system

January 16, 2023 by WDNY Radio

(MANCHESTER, England) — — Ademola Adedeji had a place secured to study law at a top university in England. As part of a charity initiative, he had authored a book about inspiring his local community in Moston, Manchester, made an address to parliament and was seen by family and friends as driven by a “passion for helping people.”

But in July 2022, Ademola — known by those close to him as Ade — was sentenced to prison as part of a gang along with nine other young Black men. Prosecutors alleged that Ade belonged to a gang, named M40 after their local zip code, who had plotted a revenge attack after one of their members, Ade’s friend Alexander John Soyoye, was stabbed to death in 2020.

But, according to his family and defense team, the gang was not a “gang” at all — but instead a loose music collective creating songs as part of the young but increasingly popular genre of U.K. drill music. Ade, who was 17 at the time of Soyoye’s death, was not even part of M40, they say, he merely liked listening to drill music.

Investigators said they found “hundreds of thousands of communications” proving that the group had “entered in to an agreement to kill or seriously injure a number of individuals.”

According to Ade’s lawyers, his involvement was to send a handful of messages in a Telegram chat, set up by Soyoye’s friends, where he shared a postal code and a screengrab of a map of someone he believed to be a perpetrator. Ade acknowledged to his role in sending the text messages, describing it as a “moment of madness” as he processed the grief of losing a friend. The individual named by Ade was not hurt, his lawyers at the time said.

“The messages that he sent were he speculated about somebody who he had heard was involved in the killing, and he sent a post code around where that person might possibly be,” Reece Williams, Ade’s former mentor at a youth charity he was involved in, told ABC News. “No harm from which came. There was no attack on the individual that was named. No harm came to that individual whatsoever.”

Police said other participants did go onto commit violent crimes, but the online chat formed the basis of the prosecutor’s argument that this group of young Black men were all involved as a violent gang. Ade, now 19, was sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiracy to commit assault.

“Their plans, some of which had been executed and others which remained in planning, posed a serious threat of harm to their targets as well as a very real risk to members of the public,” local police said in a statement following the sentencing. “This positive outcome should reassure members of the public and warn offenders that those involved in both the planning and execution of acts of violence will be prosecuted and brought to face justice, where they should expect to feel the full force of the system.”

For three weeks of the trial last summer, jurors were presented with examples of drill music and its violent lyrics as evidence of their gang affiliation and violent intent, according to supporters present in the court. Analysts were brought into the courtroom to discuss the meaning of certain lyrics and jurors were played examples of drill music videos.

Originating in Chicago in the early 2010s, the subgenre of rap music has sparked controversy in the U.K. for a perceived celebration of gang life and violence.

In several situations, artists have rapped about real life murders, and, in the U.K., both the courts and police have exercised powers to censor a number of prominent drill artists on the grounds that they incite crime.

Eithne Quinn, a professor of cultural studies at the University of Manchester, who has served as an independent expert in legal cases involving rap, told ABC News the use of drill lyrics against defendants is “very, very frequent” at trial. Particularly when large groups of men are on trial together, the music “brings in stereotypes about criminality, about violence” into the courtroom, she said, often also conflating the young men on trial with those that appear in music videos.

“The music becomes the soundtrack for shoring up the idea of the gang, in the space often of hard evidence that should be needed when such serious charges are on, and people’s lives are on the line,” Quinn said.

“When rap video after rap video is played in court, the jurors do not know what to make of the rap music. It pervades the whole courtroom,” she said. “It makes the jury frightened. It gives them a sense that there’s a kind of public safety issue.”

Quinn said rap was also often treated as “autobiography or a documentary or a diary entry,” while also “just giving a sense of bad character, of propensity to violence.”

While Ade admitted to listening to drill music, he denied being part of either a gang or the music collective. The trial was a “textbook” example of what can happen when rap music is used by prosecutors, Quinn said.

“The day I went to the court and I saw over 35 lawyers, barristers, solicitors on this case,” Taiwo, Ade’s mother, told ABC News. “And I look at where those boys were sitting. And then I knew there was trouble because they never had the chance to really know who the boys are. They already painted them as gang because they’re Black, because they together, and they listen to drill music. So automatically they become a gang. They were never seen as kids, as children.”

Though Ade had been stopped and searched dozens of times by police officers, his mother said, he had no prior convictions and is still in prison as he weighs up his dreams of becoming a lawyer. He cooperated fully with the police, confessed to his involvement in the chat and hoped that the justice system would find him innocent of the charges. He was jailed, she said, because of the color of his skin.

According to Williams, prosecutors created and the jury accepted the image of a violent Ade, which contrasted with the reality he knew that Ade was a “compassionate” and inspiring member of the community who wanted to be a lawyer himself.

“I was surprised initially that they had been arrested and brought in on the charges based on such little evidence that they actually had,” he told ABC News. “But I wasn’t surprised in the verdicts at all, because I have always said, if you present ten young Black men as a gang. The ordinary layperson who does not understand how innocent life works and doesn’t understand what it means to be a gang. They’re just going to hear those words. They’re going to have violence. The images of young men rapping violent lyrics and drill music [and they’re] going to put two and two together.”

The use of these prosecuting methods, Williams claims, was driven by a need to secure convictions and is ultimately underpinned by racism.

Last year, Ade’s local Member of Parliament, Lucy Powell, wrote to the Minister of Justice to express her concerns for the case and appealed for direct intervention. In the letter, obtained by ABC News, she wrote about Ade’s exemplary academic record, his future prospects, alleging that he and three of his peers were “being prosecuted based on messages sent while they were trying to navigate their grief.” She has not, she said, received any acknowledgment of the letter.

“The evidential bar is just a lot lower [to prosecute gangs],” Powell said. “[Prosecutors] don’t need to show that someone had any anything to do with the actual criminal act at question at all. You just have to show that there was an association … and you’re just as culpable as the person who wielded the knife.”

The use of drill music in trials has prompted criticism from advocates who say it disproportionately targets Black men, who are overrepresented in the justice system to begin with.

“Because of the connotations of [drill] music, the topics that the music reflects, that makes it easier, I think, to prosecute cases like this where the whole case is predicated on being able to show that all the men in the dock, if you like, are all part of the same criminal gang network,” Powell said.

“We are aware of the complexities of prosecuting cases where there are allegations of gang involvement and prosecutors have clear legal guidance to inform their considerations,” a spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service told ABC News. “Our prosecutors carefully assessed the evidence in this very complex case, considering each individual in respect of each charge.”

“The jury heard all the evidence and made their decision on each charge and each defendant, properly directed by the judge, and we respect those verdicts,” the statement added.

The Prosecution Service has launched an update of its guidance to prosecutors on the inclusion of drill music as evidence, with a public review due to produce findings this year. But some experts warned they were worried the changes would be superficial.

Quinn, who co-founded the “Prosecuting Rap” project, which has campaigned for changes to the music’s use in court, said the U.K. should look at legislation currently being pursued in New York, where two Democrat senators have put forward a bill titled “Rap Music on Trial” that would set a higher bar for prosecutors using songs as evidence.

In November, an appeal against Ade’s sentencing was denied, but now — with a new legal team — they are preparing a fresh appeal and hope to overturn the conviction, his mother said.

In the meantime, his family and friends continue to support him, after, they say, one community tragedy was compounded by another.

“His community misses him,” Williams said. “That’s one thing that I’d say. There’s lots of young people that absolutely miss his absence, that absolutely feel his absence, that miss him, that counted on him as somebody that would offer them support.”

Russia-Ukraine live updates: Three children among 40 people killed in Dnipro missile strike