Six Britons working on behalf of Russia’s Wagner group have been sentenced to prison for setting fire to a located in London 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 planned a “series of terrorist and sabotage acts” in the interests of the Russian state.
Dylan Earl was given a seventeen-year prison sentence with an additional six years on extended licence due to his “leading role”. Jake Reeves, a resident of Croydon, South London, was sentenced to 12 years in jail with one year on supervised release. The offences they admitted made them the first individuals to be found guilty under the National Security Act 2023.
Jakeem Rose, also from Croydon, was jailed for a term of eight years and ten months. Nii Mensah, 23, a Thornton Heath, South London local, was sentenced to nine years and Ugnius Asmena, who was homeless, was given seven years in prison. The trio were each found guilty of serious fire-setting and received a further year on extended licence by the judge.
Ashton Evans individual involved in drug trafficking from Newport in Gwent, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment plus a further year on extended licence after being convicted of failing to disclose details regarding terrorist acts connected to another plot in Mayfair.
Details of the Attack
The deliberate fire on a Leyton-based storage facility in East London put 60 firefighters at risk and caused one million pounds worth of destruction in March last year.
The court heard that Earl, 21 and Reeves, 24 did not leave their bedrooms while organising the attack for the Wagner group, representing the Russian government.
The group targeted the storage facility because it was being utilized for providing emergency relief and satellite communication gear to Ukraine.
When the same Ukrainian company was hit by an arson attack 10 days later in the Spanish capital, detectives from the Met’s counter-terrorism command took over the probe.
Proof and Additional Schemes
When Earl was taken into custody, police analysis of his mobile phone uncovered he had videos of the warehouse fire being initiated and was in contact with the Wagner organization on Telegram, via an user profile with the usernames ‘Privet Bot’ and ‘Lucky Strike alias’.
Some of the messages showed that preliminary surveillance for further “missions”, involving arson attacks at a restaurant and wine store in Mayfair belonging to the Russian dissident Evgeny Chichvarkin had already been carried out. The use of explosives to damage buildings was also deliberated.
Detectives discovered that the defendant Earl was also considering the potential abduction of the dissident Chichvarkin and “sending him back to Russia to face prison”.
The individual involved in narcotics from Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire had discussed an additional planned incident in the Czech Republic.
In a residence inspection, law enforcement found a Russian flag, more than £20,000 in cash and cocaine hydrochloride with a market value of about £34,000.
Motivations and Judicial Remarks
The court heard he was a participant in multiple channels promoting Russian propaganda and was driven by “simple and ugly greed”.
“This case is about the attempts by the Russian government to gain pernicious global influence using online platforms to enlist saboteurs vast distances from Moscow.”
She found the fire incident had a “terrorist connection” regardless of whether the perpetrators knew it. The Wagner organization is proscribed by the UK government as a terrorist organisation.
