Human Rights Activist Drew Pavlou Leaves UK After Being Stranded for 3 Weeks Over Alleged ‘Bomb Hoax’

An Australian human rights activist who said he was arrested in London because the Chinese embassy framed him for sending a fake bomb threat left the UK on Saturday.Drew Pavlou previously said he was told by London’s Metropolitan Police that he couldn’t leave the country. In two videos posted on Twitter on Saturday, Pavlou can be seen speaking at an airport before walking down the aisle in a plane. “I’m finally coming home,” the 23-year-old student wrote. Pavlou, a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist regime over its human rights abuses, traveled to London in June to highlight the disappearance of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai at Wimbledon. Before leaving the country, he decided to stage a small protest in front of the Chinese embassy in London on June 21, but he and his companion, a 22-year-old man identified by Pavlou as Harry, were arrested by the police at the embassy. The police told The Epoch Times at the time that staff at the Chinese Embassy in London had alerted them to a bomb threat made by email. They also said Pavlou had some glue and was trying to glue his hand to the outside of the embassy building. The police said the two men were both arrested on “suspicion of trespass on diplomatic premises, communicating false information to make a bomb hoax, and criminal damage,” and were both bailed without charge. Pavlou said the email was not from him, and that he was being framed by the Chinese embassy, and the Chinese embassy didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment at the time. Speaking to NTD on June 28, Pavlou said he “wish[es] to God” he hadn’t tried to glue a Taiwan flag to the gate of the Chinese embassy. “Because [the] Chinese Embassy had reported me as for a bomb threat that morning, and I was walking into a trap, little did I know.” Asked what evidence there is that suggests the embassy was behind the email, Pavlou’s lawyer Michael Polak said circumstantial evidence “points to it being someone connected to the embassy” because the email was sent on “the very day” Pavlou decided to protest at the embassy and that Pavlou had told him about being watched at his accommodation. Polak said the Chinese ambassador “should be expelled” if the embassy was “perverting the course of justice trying to set him up for a serious offense,” and that they were asking the police to drop the case because they can not get a fair trial unless the police can check Chinese embassy’s computers, which the embassy “is not going to allow.” Pavlou, who previously said he had been couchsurfing in London, also said there had been people filming his address “for hours on end” and a person with British accent threatening him that “the party” is going after him. Boarding a plane on Saturday, Pavlou thanked the Australian High Commission for helping him get out of London in a video. He also said the police investigation is still ongoing and that he will be back in London in October to defend himself. The Metropolitan Police didn’t provide any update regarding the case when approached by The Epoch Times. Follow Lily Zhou is a freelance writer mostly covering UK news for The Epoch Times.