:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/GPI5L2JRBJHVHCYMMMRYWMLTG4.jpg "A British guard was sentenced to 13 years in prison for spying for Russia")
A British security guard was sentenced on Friday by a London court to 13 years and 2 months in prison for spying for Russia in 2020 while working at the UK Embassy in Berlin.
Judge Mark Wall of the Old Bailey Criminal Court read the sentence at the end of the trial the guard faced David Smith58 years old, arrested in August 2021.
Smith, who has the right to decide whether to serve his sentence in the UK or Germany, worked at the British embassy in berlin for eight years and was accused of sending Russian Major General Sergei Chukhurov personal data of embassy officials as well as footage from security cameras.
Before reading the sentence, the magistrate said that Smith had copied a “large amount of material“over the years and that”I knew I shouldn’t have copied any of these documents”.
The guard also knew that if these documents fell into the wrong hands, they could harm British interests or pose a threat to those working at the British Embassy, the judge said.
According to details revealed during the trial, Smith started delivering documents in 2020 in a letter to a military attaché at the Russian Embassy and promised that he would receive more information.
In a second letter, past photos of embassy staff with annotated descriptions, putting them in “maximum risksaid the judge, who added that the guardian had received financial compensation from Russia for his “betrayal”.
“You established regular contact with someone at the Russian Embassy and that contact was a channel through which your illegally obtained material was passed on,” Wall told Smith.
As the prosecution argued at trial, Smith wanted to hurt the UK and expressed displeasure when the British Embassy raised a flag in support of the LGBTQ+ community.
Smith was arrested in the German city of Potsdam and, after an investigation by British counter-terrorism police, the UK requested his extradition, which was carried out last April.
(With information from EFE)
Continue reading: