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Six Britons working on behalf of Russia’s Wagner group have been sentenced to prison for igniting a London-based storage unit that was holding humanitarian aid destined for Ukraine.

Court Rulings and Involvement

While delivering the sentences, the presiding judge at the central criminal court remarked that they had planned a “campaign of terrorism and sabotage” in the interests of the Russian state.

Dylan Earl received a 17-year prison sentence with an extra six-year period on extended licence due to his “primary involvement”. Another defendant, Jake Reeves, a resident of Croydon, South London, was sentenced to 12 years in jail with an additional 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 sentenced to a term of eight years and ten months. Nii Mensah, 23, a Thornton Heath, South London local, was given nine years imprisonment and Ugnius Asmena, 21, who was without a fixed address, was given seven years. The trio were each convicted of aggravated arson and given a further year on supervised release by the judge.

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

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 of the previous year.

The court heard that Earl, 21 and Reeves, 24 remained in their residences while coordinating the incident for the Wagner mercenary organization, representing the Russian government.

The group selected the storage facility because it was being used to supply emergency relief and StarLink satellite equipment to Ukraine.

When the identical Ukrainian firm was hit by an arson attack ten days afterward in Madrid, investigators from the Metropolitan Police's anti-terror unit assumed control of the probe.

Evidence and Further Plans

When Earl was arrested, law enforcement examination of his cellphone uncovered he had recordings of the warehouse fire being initiated and was in contact with the Wagner organization on Telegram, via an user profile with the handles ‘Privet Bot account’ and ‘Lucky Strike alias’.

Some of the communications showed that preliminary surveillance for additional operations, involving fire-related incidents at a restaurant and wine shop in Mayfair belonging to the Russian dissident Evgeny Chichvarkin had already taken place. The employment of explosive devices to harm structures was also discussed.

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 talked about another potential attack in the Czech Republic.

In a search of his home, law enforcement located a Russian flag, over twenty thousand pounds in currency and cocaine hydrochloride with a street value of about £34,000.

Motivations and Judicial Remarks

The court heard he was a participant in numerous pro-Russian propaganda channels and was motivated by “simple and ugly greed”.

“This legal matter concerns the efforts of the Russian Federation to gain pernicious global influence using social media to recruit disruptors vast distances from Moscow.”

She found the fire incident had a “terrorist connection” irrespective of if the perpetrators knew it. The Wagner group is proscribed by the UK government as a terrorist organisation.