🔗 Share this article

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

Sentencing and Roles

While delivering the sentences, the presiding judge at the Old Bailey remarked that they had orchestrated a “campaign of terrorism and sabotage” in the interests of the Russian state.

The individual named Dylan Earl received a seventeen-year prison sentence with an extra six-year period on supervised release due to his “leading role”. Another defendant, Jake Reeves, a resident of Croydon, South London, was sentenced to 12 years in prison with one year on extended licence. Their admitted crimes resulted in them being the first individuals to be convicted under the National Security Act 2023.

Jakeem Rose, also from Croydon, was jailed for a term of eight years and ten months. Nii Mensah, 23, a Thornton Heath, South London local, was given nine years and Ugnius Asmena, who was homeless, was handed seven years. The trio were each convicted of serious fire-setting and given a additional year on supervised release by the court.

Ashton Evans individual involved in drug trafficking hailing from Newport, Gwent, was sentenced to nine years with an extra year on supervised release after being found guilty of failing to disclose information about terrorist acts connected to a separate scheme in the Mayfair area.

Incident Specifics

The deliberate fire on a Leyton-based storage facility in East London put 60 firefighters at risk and resulted in £1m in damage in March last year.

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

The individuals involved selected the storage facility because it was being utilized for providing emergency relief and satellite communication gear to Ukraine.

When the same Ukrainian company was hit by an arson attack 10 days later in the Spanish capital, detectives from the Met’s counter-terrorism command assumed control of the probe.

Proof and Additional Schemes

When Earl was taken into custody, law enforcement examination of his mobile phone revealed he had videos of the storage facility blaze being initiated and was in communication with the Wagner organization on Telegram, via an account with the usernames ‘Privet Bot account’ and ‘Lucky Strike alias’.

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

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

The individual involved in narcotics from Elmesthorpe in Leicestershire had discussed another potential attack in the Czech Republic.

In a search of his home, law enforcement found a Russian flag, over twenty thousand pounds in currency and cocaine hydrochloride with a market value of approximately thirty-four thousand pounds.

Motivations and Judicial Remarks

The proceedings revealed he was a participant in multiple pro-Russian propaganda channels 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 recruit disruptors far from the Russian capital.”

She determined the arson attack had a “terrorist connection” irrespective of if the perpetrators knew it. The Wagner organization is proscribed by the UK government as a terrorist group.