A group of six individuals from Britain acting for the Wagner mercenary group linked to Russia have been handed jail terms for igniting a London-based warehouse that was holding humanitarian aid destined for Ukraine.
Court Rulings and Involvement
Sentencing the men, the judge at the Old Bailey stated that they had planned a “campaign of terrorism and sabotage” in the interests of the Russian state.
Dylan Earl was given a 17-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 given 12 years in jail with an additional year on supervised release. The offences they admitted made them the initial persons to be found guilty under the 2023 National Security Act.
Jakeem Rose, aged 23, also from Croydon, was sentenced to eight years and 10 months. Nii Mensah, 23, from Thornton Heath, south London, was given nine years and Ugnius Asmena, who was without a fixed address, was handed seven years. The trio were each convicted of serious fire-setting and received a further year on supervised release by the judge.
Ashton Evans, a 20-year-old drug dealer hailing from Newport, Gwent, was sentenced to nine years with an extra year on extended licence after being found guilty of failing to disclose information about terrorist acts relating to another plot in the Mayfair area.
Details of the Attack
The arson attack on a Leyton-based storage facility in East London put 60 firefighters at risk and resulted in £1m in damage in March of the previous year.
The court heard that Earl, 21 and the 24-year-old Reeves remained in their residences while coordinating the incident for the Wagner group, acting on behalf of the Russian government.
The group selected the warehouse because it was being utilized for providing humanitarian aid and satellite communication gear to Ukraine.
When the same Ukrainian company was hit by an arson attack 10 days later in Madrid, detectives from the Met’s counter-terrorism command took over the probe.
Evidence and Further Plans
When Earl was taken into custody, police analysis of his mobile phone uncovered he had videos of the storage facility blaze being initiated and was in communication with the Wagner group on the Telegram messaging app, via an user profile with the usernames ‘Privet Bot account’ and ‘Lucky Strike’.
Some of the communications indicated that reconnaissance for further “missions”, involving fire-related incidents at a dining establishment and wine shop in Mayfair district 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 raising the possibility of kidnapping Chichvarkin and “sending him back to Russia to confront imprisonment”.
The individual involved in narcotics from Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire had talked about an additional planned incident in the Czech Republic.
In a search of his home, law enforcement located a flag of Russia, more than £20,000 in cash and cocaine hydrochloride with a street value of about £34,000.
Motivations and Judicial Remarks
The court heard he was a member of multiple channels promoting Russian propaganda and was driven by “plain and severe avarice”.
“This case is about the efforts of the Russian Federation to gain pernicious global influence using social media to enlist saboteurs far from the Russian capital.”
She determined the fire incident had a “terrorist connection” regardless of whether the individuals responsible knew it. The Wagner group is banned by the British authorities as a terrorist organisation.
