🔗 Share this article

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

Court Rulings and Involvement

Sentencing the men, the presiding judge at the central criminal court stated that they had planned a “campaign of terrorism and sabotage” in the interests of the Russian government.

Dylan Earl received a 17-year jail term with an additional six years on extended licence due to his “leading role”. Another defendant, Jake Reeves, a resident of Croydon, South London, was given twelve years in jail with one year on supervised release. Their admitted crimes resulted in them being the first individuals to be found guilty under the National Security Act 2023.

Jakeem Rose, also a Croydon resident, was jailed for eight years and 10 months. Nii Mensah, a Thornton Heath, South London local, was sentenced to nine years and Ugnius Asmena, 21, who was without a fixed address, was handed seven years. These three individuals were each found guilty of serious fire-setting and given a additional year on extended licence by the court.

Ashton Evans drug dealer from Newport in Gwent, was jailed for nine years with an extra year on supervised release after being convicted of withholding information about terrorist acts connected to another plot in the Mayfair area.

Incident Specifics

The arson attack on a warehouse in Leyton, east London endangered sixty fire service personnel and caused £1m in damage in March last year.

The court heard that Earl, 21 and the 24-year-old Reeves remained in their residences while organising the attack for the Wagner mercenary organization, representing the Russian Federation.

The group selected the warehouse because it was being utilized for providing emergency relief and StarLink satellite equipment to Ukraine.

When the identical Ukrainian firm was hit by an intentional fire 10 days later in the Spanish capital, detectives from the Met’s counter-terrorism command took over the probe.

Evidence and Further Plans

When Earl was taken into custody, police analysis of his cellphone revealed he had videos of the storage facility blaze being initiated and was in communication with the Wagner organization on the Telegram messaging app, via an account with the usernames ‘Privet Bot’ and ‘Lucky Strike alias’.

Some of the communications indicated that preliminary surveillance for additional operations, involving fire-related incidents at a restaurant and wine store in Mayfair owned by the Russian dissident Evgeny Chichvarkin had already taken place. The use of explosives to damage buildings was also deliberated.

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

The individual involved in narcotics from Elmesthorpe in Leicestershire had talked about another potential attack in the Czech nation.

In a residence inspection, law enforcement found a Russian flag, more than £20,000 in cash and cocaine hydrochloride with a street value of about £34,000.

Driving Factors and Court Comments

The proceedings revealed he was a participant in numerous channels promoting Russian propaganda and was motivated by “simple and ugly greed”.

“This legal matter concerns the attempts by the Russian government to gain pernicious global influence using social media to enlist saboteurs far from the Russian capital.”

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