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Six Britons acting for Russia’s Wagner group have been handed jail terms for setting fire to a located in London storage unit that was storing humanitarian aid destined for Ukraine.

Sentencing and Roles

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

Dylan Earl received a seventeen-year prison sentence with an additional six years on extended licence due to his “primary involvement”. Another defendant, Jake Reeves, from Croydon in south London, was sentenced to 12 years in prison with one year on extended licence. The offences they admitted resulted in them being the initial persons to be found guilty under the National Security Act 2023.

Jakeem Rose, aged 23, also a Croydon resident, was sentenced to eight years and 10 months. Nii Mensah, from Thornton Heath, south London, was sentenced to nine years and Ugnius Asmena, who was homeless, was given seven years in prison. The trio were each convicted of aggravated arson and given a further year on extended licence by the judge.

Ashton Evans, a 20-year-old drug dealer from Newport in Gwent, was jailed for nine years plus a further year on supervised release after being convicted of withholding information about terrorist acts relating to another plot in Mayfair.

Incident Specifics

The arson attack on a Leyton-based storage facility in East London put 60 firefighters at risk and caused £1m in damage in March of the previous year.

The court heard that Earl, 21 and Reeves, 24 did not leave their bedrooms while coordinating the incident for the Wagner mercenary organization, representing the Russian government.

The group targeted the storage facility because it was being utilized for providing humanitarian aid and StarLink satellite equipment to Ukraine.

When the same Ukrainian company was hit by an intentional fire 10 days later in Madrid, investigators from the Metropolitan Police's anti-terror unit took over the probe.

Proof and Additional Schemes

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

Some of the messages showed that preliminary surveillance for further “missions”, involving arson attacks at a dining establishment and wine store in Mayfair district owned by the Russian opposition figure Evgeny Chichvarkin had already taken place. The employment of explosive devices to harm structures was also deliberated.

Investigators discovered that the defendant Earl was also considering the possibility of kidnapping Chichvarkin and “sending him back to Russia to confront imprisonment”.

The drug dealer from Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire had talked about another potential attack 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 market value of about £34,000.

Driving Factors and Court Comments

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

“This legal matter concerns the attempts by the Russian government to gain pernicious global influence using social media to recruit disruptors vast distances from Moscow.”

She determined the arson attack had a “link to terrorism” irrespective of if the perpetrators were aware of it. The Wagner organization is proscribed by the UK government as a terrorist group.