Six Britons acting for Russia’s Wagner group have been handed jail terms for igniting a located in London warehouse that was storing relief supplies destined for Ukraine.
Sentencing and Roles
Sentencing the men, the judge at the Old Bailey remarked that they had planned a “series of terrorist and sabotage acts” in the interests of the Russian government.
Dylan Earl was given a 17-year jail term with an additional six years on supervised release due to his “primary involvement”. Jake Reeves, a resident of Croydon, South London, was given twelve years in prison with an additional year on supervised release. The offences they admitted made them the first individuals to be found guilty under the 2023 National Security Act.
Jakeem Rose, aged 23, also a Croydon resident, was jailed for eight years and 10 months. Nii Mensah, from Thornton Heath, south London, was given nine years imprisonment and Ugnius Asmena, who was homeless, was handed seven years in prison. These three individuals were each convicted of aggravated arson and received a further year on supervised release by the court.
Ashton Evans individual involved in drug trafficking hailing from Newport, Gwent, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment plus a further year on supervised release after being found guilty of withholding information about acts of terrorism relating to a separate scheme in the Mayfair area.
Details of the Attack
The arson attack on a Leyton-based storage facility in East London endangered sixty fire service personnel and resulted in £1m in damage in March last year.
The proceedings revealed that Earl, 21 and Reeves, 24 remained in their residences while organising the attack for the Wagner group, acting on behalf of the Russian government.
The group targeted the warehouse because it was being used to supply humanitarian aid and StarLink satellite equipment to Ukraine.
When the same Ukrainian company was subjected to an arson attack ten days afterward in Madrid, detectives from the Met’s counter-terrorism command took over the investigation.
Proof and Additional Schemes
When Earl was arrested, law enforcement examination of his cellphone revealed he had recordings of the warehouse fire being initiated and was in contact with the Wagner organization on the Telegram messaging app, via an user profile with the handles ‘Privet Bot account’ and ‘Lucky Strike’.
Some of the communications showed that reconnaissance for further “missions”, involving arson attacks at a restaurant and wine store in Mayfair owned by the Russian opposition figure Evgeny Chichvarkin had already been carried out. The use of explosives to damage buildings was also discussed.
Investigators discovered that Earl was also raising the possibility of kidnapping Chichvarkin and “exiling him back to Russia to confront imprisonment”.
The individual involved in narcotics from Elmesthorpe in Leicestershire had talked about an additional planned incident in the Czech Republic.
In a search of his home, police found a Russian flag, over twenty thousand pounds in currency and cocaine hydrochloride with a market value of approximately thirty-four thousand pounds.
Driving Factors and Court Comments
The court heard he was a participant in numerous channels promoting Russian propaganda and was driven by “plain and severe avarice”.
“This legal matter concerns the attempts by the Russian government to acquire harmful worldwide sway using social media to recruit disruptors far from the Russian capital.”
She determined the arson attack had a “link to terrorism” regardless of whether the perpetrators knew it. The Wagner group is banned by the British authorities as a terrorist group.
