A Putney man has been accused of being part of an arson attack carried out on behalf of the Russian intelligence agencies.
Paul Adrian English, 60, a British citizen, was charged this week with aggravated arson along with several co-defendants. He appeared in court on Monday with one of them, Nii Kojo Mensah, aged 21, and both were remanded in custody until a hearing next month.
English appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court accused of setting fire to an East London warehouse linked to Ukraine last month. According to prosecutors, there was a target of the arson attack: a man referred to as ‘Mr X’ . English was allegedly paid by another man, 20-year-old Dylan James Earl, to carry out the attack.
A fourth man, Jake Reeves, 22, from Croydon was also involved in setting the fires and a fifth Dmitrijus Paulauska, 22, also from Croydon, has been charged with failing to disclose to police information about terrorist acts.
The prosecution argues that it was Dylan Earl who planned and organised the attack and was knowingly working for the Russian intelligences services. He appeared in court on Saturday, a day after he was arrested and was remanded in custody until a further hearing at the Old Bailey next month.
Reconnaissance and recruitment
Earl is accused of “agreeing to undertake fraudulent activity, research and reconnaissance of targets, and attempting to recruit individuals to assist” with “conduct to materially assist a foreign intelligence service carrying out UK-related activities”.
Meanwhile, there is currently no evidence that Putney resident English was aware that the attack was arranged on behalf of Russians but was instead driven by the money offered. The prosecution alleges that English picked up Mensah and drove him to the warehouse where, shortly afterwards, a fire broken out. The blaze took 60 firefighters over four hours to control.
All the men were charged under the National Security Act as part of a counter terrorism investigation; the first to be charged under new legislation. The court hearings have also been kept quiet until today – nearly a week later – after the presiding judge ordered reporting restrictions because of national security concerns.
The defendants have yet to enter any pleas.
The man leading the investigation, Commander Dominic Murphy, who heads up the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “While these are very serious allegations, I want to reassure the public that we do not believe there to be any wider threat to them in connection with this matter. This investigation remains ongoing, but now that charges have been brought about I would urge everyone to respect the criminal justice process and not to speculate or comment further in relation to this case.”
