🔗 Share this article

Six Britons working on behalf of Russia’s Wagner group have been handed jail terms for setting fire to a London-based storage unit that was holding humanitarian aid destined for Ukraine.

Court Rulings and Involvement

While delivering the sentences, the judge at the Old Bailey remarked that they had orchestrated a “series of terrorist and sabotage acts” to benefit the Russian state.

The individual named Dylan Earl was given a seventeen-year prison sentence with an extra six-year period on extended licence due to his “leading role”. Jake Reeves, from Croydon in south London, was sentenced to twelve years in jail with one year on extended licence. Their admitted crimes resulted in them being the initial persons to be found guilty under the 2023 National Security Act.

Jakeem Rose, also a Croydon resident, was jailed for a term of eight years and ten months. Nii Mensah, 23, from Thornton Heath, south London, was given nine years and Ugnius Asmena, 21, who was homeless, was given seven years in prison. These three individuals were each found guilty of serious fire-setting and received a additional year on supervised release by the court.

Ashton Evans, a 20-year-old drug dealer hailing from Newport, Gwent, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment with an extra year on supervised release after being found guilty of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism connected to another plot in Mayfair.

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 of the previous year.

The proceedings revealed that the 21-year-old Earl and Reeves, 24 remained in their residences while organising the attack for the Wagner group, representing the Russian government.

The individuals involved targeted the storage facility because it was being used to supply emergency relief and StarLink satellite equipment to Ukraine.

When the identical Ukrainian firm was subjected to an arson attack ten days afterward in Madrid, detectives from the Met’s counter-terrorism command assumed control of the investigation.

Proof and Additional Schemes

When Earl was taken into custody, law enforcement examination of his cellphone uncovered he had videos of the warehouse fire being started and was in contact with the Wagner group on Telegram, via an account with the handles ‘Privet Bot account’ and ‘Lucky Strike’.

Some of the messages showed that reconnaissance for additional operations, involving fire-related incidents at a dining establishment and wine shop in Mayfair owned by the Russian dissident Evgeny Chichvarkin had already been carried out. The employment of explosive devices to damage buildings was also discussed.

Detectives found that Earl was also considering the potential abduction of the dissident Chichvarkin and “sending him back to Russia to confront imprisonment”.

The drug dealer from Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire had talked about an additional planned incident in the Czech Republic.

In a search of his home, police found a Russian flag, more than £20,000 in cash and cocaine hydrochloride with a market value of approximately thirty-four thousand pounds.

Motivations and Judicial Remarks

The court heard he was a participant in numerous channels promoting Russian propaganda 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 far from the Russian capital.”

She found the fire incident had a “terrorist connection” regardless of whether the perpetrators were aware of it. The Wagner group is banned by the British authorities as a terrorist organisation.