A court in London has handed down prison sentences to six Bulgarians who spied for Russia in the UK.
This is reported by The Guardian and BBC.
The harshest sentence was handed down to the groupʼs leader, Orlin Rusev — he will spend 10 years and 8 months behind bars.
The remaining defendants were also sent to prison. As Judge Gilliard explained, each of the defendants was sentenced to different terms of imprisonment, taking into account the varying degrees of severity of the crimes they committed.
Thus, Bizer Dzhambazov received 10 years and 2 months in prison, and Katrin Ivanova received 9 years and 8 months. Meanwhile, Vanya Gaberova received 6 years, 8 months and 3 weeks, Tikhomir Ivanchev received 8 years, and Ivan Stoyanov received 5 years and 3 weeks.
Top row, left to right: Orlin Rusev, Katrin Ivanova, Ivan Stoyanov.
Bottom row, from left to right: Bizer Dzhambazov, Vanya Gaberova, Tikhomir Ivanchev.
Each of the six convicts must serve at least half of their sentence before they will be eligible for parole.
The spiesʼ main targets are investigative journalists Roman Dobrokhotov and Khristo Grozev, who helped expose the Russian authoritiesʼ involvement in the nerve agent poisonings of first former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and then opposition figure Alexei Navalny.
According to the prosecution, the spies carried out six espionage operations for Russia in the UK and other European countries from August 2020 to February 2023. Among other things, they monitored Dobrokhotov and Grozev, as well as a military base in Germany where Ukrainian soldiers were training. They collected their phone numbers.
In the text of the verdict, the judge emphasized that no one was physically harmed as a result of the defendantsʼ actions, although in the correspondence they discussed options for kidnapping and killing both journalists.
The surveillance was organized by Jan Marsalek, the former chief operating officer of the payment company Wirecard, and is believed to be the head of the spy group. In 2021-2022, people he hired spied on investigators, organized the robbery of Grozevʼs apartment, and discussed the possibility of kidnapping or killing journalists.
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