Six Britons working on behalf of Russia’s Wagner group have been sentenced to prison for setting fire to a London-based storage unit that was storing humanitarian aid intended for Ukraine.
Court Rulings and Involvement
Sentencing the men, the judge at the Old Bailey stated that they had orchestrated a “campaign of terrorism and sabotage” in the interests of the Russian state.
Dylan Earl received a seventeen-year prison sentence with an extra six-year period on supervised release due to his “leading role”. Another defendant, Jake Reeves, a resident of Croydon, South London, was sentenced to 12 years in prison with an additional year on supervised release. Their admitted crimes made them the first individuals to be found guilty under the 2023 National Security Act.
Jakeem Rose, aged 23, also from Croydon, was jailed for a term of eight years and ten months. Nii Mensah, from Thornton Heath, south London, was given nine years and Ugnius Asmena, 21, who was homeless, was handed seven years in prison. The trio were each found guilty of aggravated arson and given a further year on supervised release by the judge.
Ashton Evans, a 20-year-old drug dealer hailing from Newport, Gwent, was jailed for nine years imprisonment plus a further year on extended licence after being convicted of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism relating to another plot in the Mayfair area.
Details of the Attack
The deliberate fire on a Leyton-based storage facility in East London endangered sixty fire service personnel and caused £1m in damage in March last year.
The court heard that the 21-year-old Earl and the 24-year-old Reeves did not leave their bedrooms while coordinating the incident for the Wagner group, acting on behalf of the Russian government.
The individuals involved targeted the storage facility because it was being utilized for providing humanitarian aid and StarLink satellite equipment to Ukraine.
When the same Ukrainian company was hit by an arson attack ten days afterward in the Spanish capital, investigators from the Metropolitan Police's anti-terror unit took over the probe.
Proof and Additional Schemes
When Earl was taken into custody, police analysis of his cellphone revealed he had recordings of the warehouse fire being started and was in communication with the Wagner group on the Telegram messaging app, via an user profile with the handles ‘Privet Bot account’ and ‘Lucky Strike alias’.
Some of the communications indicated that reconnaissance for further “missions”, involving fire-related incidents at a dining establishment and wine store in Mayfair belonging to the Russian dissident Evgeny Chichvarkin had already been carried out. The employment of explosive devices to damage buildings was also discussed.
Investigators found that Earl was also raising the potential abduction of the dissident Chichvarkin and “sending him back to Russia to confront imprisonment”.
The individual involved in narcotics from Elmesthorpe in Leicestershire had discussed an additional planned incident in the Czech Republic.
In a search of his home, police located a flag of Russia, over twenty thousand pounds in currency and cocaine hydrochloride with a market value of approximately thirty-four thousand pounds.
Motivations and Judicial Remarks
The court heard he was a member of multiple pro-Russian propaganda channels and was motivated by “simple and ugly greed”.
“This legal matter concerns the efforts of the Russian Federation to gain pernicious global influence using online platforms to enlist saboteurs vast distances from Moscow.”
She determined the fire incident had a “terrorist connection” irrespective of if the individuals responsible knew it. The Wagner group is banned by the UK government as a terrorist group.
