🔗 Share this article

Six Britons acting for Russia’s Wagner group have been handed jail terms for setting fire to a London-based warehouse that was holding relief supplies intended for Ukraine.

Sentencing and Roles

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

Dylan Earl received a seventeen-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 twelve years in prison 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, aged 23, also a Croydon resident, was sentenced to a term of eight years and ten months. Nii Mensah, from Thornton Heath, south London, was given nine years imprisonment and Ugnius Asmena, who was homeless, was handed seven years in prison. The trio were each convicted of serious fire-setting and received a additional year on extended licence by the court.

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

Details of the Attack

The arson attack on a Leyton-based storage facility in 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 the 24-year-old Reeves did not leave their bedrooms while organising the attack for the Wagner group, acting on behalf of the Russian government.

The group targeted the storage facility because it was being used to supply emergency relief and satellite communication gear to Ukraine.

When the same Ukrainian company was subjected to an arson attack 10 days later in the Spanish capital, investigators from the Metropolitan Police's anti-terror unit took over the investigation.

Proof and Additional Schemes

When Earl was taken into custody, law enforcement examination of his mobile phone uncovered he had videos of the storage facility blaze being initiated and was in contact 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 preliminary surveillance for additional operations, involving arson attacks at a restaurant and wine shop in Mayfair owned by the Russian dissident Evgeny Chichvarkin had already taken place. The employment of explosive devices to damage buildings was also discussed.

Detectives discovered that the defendant Earl was also considering the potential abduction of Chichvarkin and “exiling him back to Russia to face prison”.

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

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

Driving Factors and Court Comments

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

“This legal matter concerns the attempts by the Russian government to gain pernicious global influence using online platforms to recruit disruptors far from the Russian capital.”

She found the fire incident had a “link to terrorism” irrespective of if the perpetrators were aware of it. The Wagner group is banned by the British authorities as a terrorist organisation.