Attack on equipment for Ukraine was planned by Wagner mercenaries on behalf of Russian intelligence, prosecutors said.

A jury in the United Kingdom has convicted three men of arson following an attack on an east London warehouse that was storing Starlink satellite equipment destined for Ukraine.

Prosecutors had alleged that the attack on March 20, 2024, was planned by agents of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, acting on behalf of Russian military intelligence.

Jakeem Rose, 23, Ugnius Asmena, 20, and Nii Mensah, 23, were found guilty of aggravated arson on Tuesday at London’s Old Bailey court.

Jurors cleared a fourth man, Paul English, 61, who told police that while he was paid to drive the others, he knew nothing about the fire.

Dylan Earl, 21, who was accused of orchestrating the attack, and Jake Reeves, 23, had already pleaded guilty to aggravated arson and offences under the UK’s National Security Act 2023.

Prosecutors said Wagner used British intermediaries to recruit the men to target an industrial unit in Leyton, east London, where generators and Starlink satellite equipment bound for Ukraine were being stored.

Authorities cast the arson, which caused about 1 million pounds ($1.35m) of damage, as part of a campaign of disruption across Europe that Western officials blame on Moscow and its proxies.

Ukraine’s military frequently uses Starlink in its effort to fend off Russia’s invasion.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of Counter Terrorism Command at London’s Metropolitan Police, said the case was a “clear example of an organisation linked to the Russian state using ‘proxies’, in this case British men, to carry out very serious criminal activity in this country”.

He said Earl and Reeves “willingly acted as hostile agents on behalf of the Russian state,” adding that it was “only by good fortune nobody was seriously injured or worse”.

Earl also admitted to plotting to set fire to a wine shop and a restaurant in the upmarket London neighbourhood of Mayfair, as well as plans to kidnap their owner, Evgeny Chichvarkin.

Chichvarkin, an exiled Russian tycoon who has been vocal in his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, told the court in a written statement that he is considered “a key enemy of the Russian state and received daily death threats”.

Two other men were on trial in connection with the arson and related plots.

Ashton Evans, 20, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about terrorist acts relating to the Mayfair plot but cleared of failing to tell authorities about the warehouse arson. After Dmitrijus Paulauskas, 23, was cleared of both, he burst into tears and nodded towards the jury.

Jurors were shown evidence from security cameras and of the arson Mensah filmed on his phone, along with a message he sent Earl later saying: “Bro lol it’s on the news.”

They were also shown hundreds of messages among the men and between Earl and a Russian recruiter.

Earl was the first person to be charged under the National Security Act, which created new measures to combat espionage, political interference and benefitting from foreign intelligence services.

Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said the convicted defendants would be sentenced in autumn.

Founded in 2014, the Wagner Group has become Russia’s largest and most notorious private military company, with operations around the world, including in Africa, the Middle East, South America and Ukraine.

In 2022, Wagner enlisted 50,000 Russian prisoners to fight on the front lines of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, of which some 20,000 were killed in the months-long battle for control of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, the group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said at the time.

In June 2023, Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a private jet which crashed north of Moscow shortly after he led Wagner troops who crossed from Ukraine into the Russian border city of Rostov-on-Don, saying he would fight anyone who tried to stop them.

Source:

Al Jazeera and news agencies