LONDON (Reuters) -The ringleader of an arson attack on Ukraine-linked businesses in London last year was on Friday jailed for 17 years for what prosecutors described as “a sustained campaign of terrorism and sabotage on UK soil”.
Dylan Earl, 21, admitted aggravated arson over the 2024 blaze which targeted companies delivering satellite equipment from Elon Musk’s Starlink to Ukraine, which is vital for its defence against Russia’s continuing invasion.
He also became the first person convicted under the National Security Act for his role in a plot targeting a wine shop and restaurant in London’s upmarket Mayfair district, with plans to kidnap the owner, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Prosecutors said on Thursday that Earl also discussed with his handler from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group plans to kidnap the co-founder of finance app Revolut and torch a warehouse in the Czech Republic.
Earl appeared in the dock at London’s Old Bailey court alongside Jake Reeves, 24, who had also pleaded guilty to aggravated arson and a National Security Act charge of obtaining a material benefit from a foreign intelligence agency.
“This case is all about the efforts of the Russian Federation to gain pernicious global influence using social media to enlist saboteurs vast distances from Moscow,” Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said.
She sentenced Earl to 17 years in prison for arson and National Security Act charges, along with a separate drugs charge. Reeves was sentenced to 12 years.
“These sentences send a clear message: we will not tolerate hostile activity by foreign states in our country,” Security Minister Dan Jarvis said in a statement. “Russia’s attempts to undermine the UK’s support for Ukraine will not succeed.”
ARSON DESIGNED TO STOP AID TO UKRAINE
Earl and Reeves were sentenced with four others who were convicted for their part in a plot to burn down warehouses on an industrial estate in east London on behalf of Wagner.
Cheema-Grubb said that fire was “intended by their paymasters to impair delivery of aid to Ukraine”.
The convictions and lengthy sentences are the latest involving allegations of malign activity by Moscow in Britain after a group of Bulgarians was convicted of being directed by Wirecard fugitive Jan Marsalek to spy for Russian intelligence.
In recent years, Britain has repeatedly accused Moscow of orchestrating malign activity in Britain and across Europe, with the British domestic spy chief saying Russian operatives were trying to cause “mayhem”.
British police said on Thursday they had arrested three men suspected of assisting Russia’s intelligence service and warned the public against what it said was a growing campaign by foreign intelligence services to recruit ‘proxies’ in Britain.
The Kremlin has denied the accusations and its embassy in London has rejected any part in the warehouse fire, saying the British government blames Russia for anything “bad” that happens in Britain.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by William James and Toby Chopra)
