🔗 Share this article

Six Britons acting for Russia’s Wagner group have been sentenced to prison for setting fire to a located in London storage unit that was storing humanitarian aid intended for Ukraine.

Court Rulings and Involvement

While delivering the sentences, the presiding judge at the Old Bailey remarked that they had orchestrated a “series of terrorist and sabotage acts” to benefit the Russian government.

Dylan Earl received a seventeen-year jail term with an additional six years on extended licence due to his “primary involvement”. Jake Reeves, from Croydon in south London, was sentenced to twelve years in jail with an additional 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 eight years and 10 months. Nii Mensah, 23, from Thornton Heath, south London, was given nine years imprisonment and Ugnius Asmena, 21, who was without a fixed address, was handed seven years in prison. These three individuals were each found guilty of serious fire-setting and given a further year on supervised release by the court.

Ashton Evans, a 20-year-old drug dealer hailing from Newport, Gwent, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment with an extra year on supervised release after being convicted of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism relating to a separate scheme 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 proceedings revealed that Earl, 21 and the 24-year-old Reeves did not leave their bedrooms while coordinating the incident for the Wagner group, representing the Russian government.

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

When the identical Ukrainian firm was subjected to an arson attack ten days afterward in the Spanish capital, investigators from the Metropolitan Police's anti-terror unit took over the probe.

Evidence and Further Plans

When Earl was taken into custody, police analysis of his cellphone uncovered he had recordings of the storage facility blaze being started and was in contact with the Wagner group on the Telegram messaging app, via an account with the usernames ‘Privet Bot account’ and ‘Lucky Strike alias’.

Some of the messages showed that reconnaissance for further “missions”, involving arson attacks at a dining establishment and wine shop in Mayfair district belonging to the Russian opposition figure Evgeny Chichvarkin had already taken place. The use of explosives to damage buildings was also discussed.

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

The drug dealer from Elmesthorpe in Leicestershire had talked about another potential attack in the Czech Republic.

In a search of his home, police located a Russian flag, more than £20,000 in cash and cocaine hydrochloride with a street value of about £34,000.

Motivations and Judicial Remarks

The court heard he was a member of numerous pro-Russian propaganda channels and was driven by “plain and severe avarice”.

“This case is about 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 “terrorist connection” regardless of whether the perpetrators were aware of it. The Wagner group is banned by the UK government as a terrorist group.