President Trump referred to three people who were arrested on suspicion of vandalizing his Trump Turnberry golf resort in Scotland with pro-Palestinian messages as “terrorists.”
Mr. Trump said he had been informed of the arrests by Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain. “They did serious damage,” the president said on Monday in a post on his social media channel, “and hopefully will be treated harshly.”
In the incident, earlier this month, the resort’s clubhouse was defaced with red paint and part of the course was dug up and painted with the phrase “Gaza is not 4 sale.” The police in Scotland said they charged a 33-year-old man. They arrested another man, 75, and a woman, 66, both of whom were released, pending further inquiries.
Palestine Action, a pro-Palestinian activist group, posted footage of the damage on social media on March 8. “Whilst Trump attempts to treat Gaza as his property,” the group said, “he should know his own property is within reach.”
Mr. Trump has been in regular touch with Mr. Starmer by phone in recent weeks, according to the prime minister’s aides, and has raised the issue of Trump Turnberry, which he has owned since 2014. The resort, in Ayrshire, on the rugged west coast of Scotland, is one of Mr. Trump’s prized assets.
“You cannot let things like this attack happen,” Mr. Trump wrote, “and I greatly appreciate the work of Prime Minister Starmer, and UK Law Enforcement.”
In 2018, during his first term, Mr. Trump asked his ambassador to London, Robert Wood Johnson IV, to contact the British government for help in steering the British Open golf championship to Turnberry, which has not hosted the tournament since 2009.
The R&A, the golf association that runs the tournament, said in 2021, after the attack by Mr. Trump’s supporters on the U.S. Capitol, that it would not bring the Open back to Turnberry while it was associated with Mr. Trump.
