🔗 Share this article

Six Britons acting for Russia’s Wagner group have been sentenced to prison for igniting a London-based storage unit that was storing humanitarian aid destined for Ukraine.

Sentencing and Roles

Sentencing the men, the presiding judge at the Old Bailey stated that they had orchestrated a “campaign of terrorism and sabotage” to benefit the Russian state.

Dylan Earl received a 17-year prison sentence with an extra six-year period on extended licence due to his “leading role”. Another defendant, Jake Reeves, from Croydon in 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 convicted under the National Security Act 2023.

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 sentenced to nine years and Ugnius Asmena, who was homeless, was handed seven years. These three individuals were each found guilty of serious fire-setting and given a additional year on supervised release by the judge.

Ashton Evans, a 20-year-old drug dealer from Newport in Gwent, was sentenced to nine years plus a further year on supervised release after being convicted of withholding information about terrorist acts relating to a separate scheme in the Mayfair area.

Details of the Attack

The arson attack on a warehouse in Leyton, east London endangered sixty fire service personnel and caused one million pounds worth of destruction in March last year.

The court heard that the 21-year-old Earl and Reeves, 24 did not leave their bedrooms while coordinating the incident for the Wagner mercenary organization, acting on behalf of the Russian government.

The individuals involved selected the warehouse 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, detectives from the Met’s counter-terrorism command assumed control of the probe.

Proof and Additional Schemes

When Earl was arrested, police analysis of his cellphone revealed he had videos of the storage facility blaze 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’.

Some of the communications indicated that reconnaissance for additional operations, involving fire-related incidents at a restaurant and wine store in Mayfair belonging to the Russian dissident Evgeny Chichvarkin had already taken place. The employment of explosive devices to damage buildings was also discussed.

Detectives discovered that Earl was also raising the potential abduction of Chichvarkin and “exiling him back to Russia to confront imprisonment”.

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

In a residence inspection, police located a Russian flag, more than £20,000 in cash and cocaine hydrochloride with a market value of approximately thirty-four thousand pounds.

Driving Factors and Court Comments

The proceedings revealed he was a member of multiple pro-Russian propaganda channels and was driven by “plain and severe avarice”.

“This case is about 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 arson attack had a “terrorist connection” regardless of whether the perpetrators were aware of it. The Wagner organization is proscribed by the UK government as a terrorist organisation.