Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The spy who loathed us... Brit facing 14 yrs
Embassy guard passed secrets to the Russians
IN an FC Dnipro shirt and wielding a knife in the flat where he lived alone surrounded by Russian memorabilia, this is the British man facing jail after spying for the Kremlin.
David Smith, 58, admitted passing information to Vladimir Putin’s government while working as a security guard at the British Embassy in Germany.
Prosecutors said Smith had expressed hatred of the UK and Germany, and had wanted to live in Russia or Ukraine when he passed intelligence to Moscow.
Photographs of his flat in Potsdam, East Berlin, show a copy of John le Carre spy thriller, A Murder of Quality, and Russian memorabilia that included green Soviet-era military caps with hammer and sickle badges.
In a photo, he poses in a T-shirt that reads “Russia” alongside a Soviet tank.
At the Old Bailey, prosecutors said the former junior officer in the RAF had wanted to hurt the UK and the British Embassy where he had worked for eight years. He was also said to have been angered at the flying of the Rainbow flag in support of the LGBTQ+ community.
In the About Me section of his social media profile, Smith wrote: “Anti Nato.
Anti EU. Anti American.” In 2014, he posted an image of Vladimir Putin raising a middle finger. The following year, he added one of then-german Chancellor Angela Merkel on a toilet captioned “Oh no, Russians are coming”.
He admitted eight breaches of the Official Secrets Act by committing acts prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state over a period of 15 months.
The first charge stated that he had given General Major Chukhurov, the military attache at the Russian Embassy in Berlin, information about the activities, identities, addresses and phone numbers of British civil servants.
Smith had written a letter offering information to Chukhurov.
He collected intelligence on the operation and layout of the British Embassy in Berlin, which was said to be useful to “an enemy, namely the Russian state”.
Some of the material was classified secret and related to the activities of the British Government and its German embassy. On August 5 last year, he collected unauthorised photocopies of documents provided by a man known as “Dmitry”. He also collected recordings of CCTV footage of “Dmitry”.
MI6 and their European counterparts trailed Smith for months after suspicions were raised.
On the day of his arrest last August, Smith had left work early complaining he was feeling ill, only to be met by German police on arrival in Potsdam.
Police found 800 euros (£700) in cash at his home, and his electronic devices revealed footage from the embassy and the draft letter to Chukhurov dated May 14, 2020.
In it, he said he worked at the embassy and wanted anonymity as he offered a book classified as “official sensitive”. There were pictures of embassy staff security passes and personal information, classified emails and documents, posters and whiteboards in the embassy.
Following a probe by British counterterrorism police, a request was made for his extradition last November and he was brought back to the UK in April.
Smith, originally from Paisley, near
GUILTY Smith in dock at Old Bailey Glasgow, claims he was a disgruntled employee rather than a spy and never intended his actions to help Russia.
But he now faces a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
His guilty pleas last week can only now be reported since the Crown indicated it would not seek a trial on a ninth count, which Smith had denied.
He is due to be sentenced in February. His barrister Matthew Ryder KC told the court: “There is a very large difference between the Crown and Mr Smith about his motivation. His intention and why he did what he did and the seriousness of the allegations are disputed.
“There is significant difference as to the basis Mr Smith has pleaded guilty, including him not having a negative intention towards the UK.”
Smith’s intention and why he did what he did are disputed SMITH’S BARRISTER MATTHEW RYDER KC
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