Bulgarians convicted of spying for Russia face 'double figure sentences'

Six Bulgarians convicted of spying for Russia face significant jail terms when they are sentenced at the Old Bailey in London on Monday.

Orlin Roussev, Biser Dzhambazov, Katrin Ivanova, Tihomir Ivanchev, Ivan Stoyanov and Vanya Gaberova will be sentenced for their part in a Russian spy ring run from a 33-room Great Yarmouth guest house.

Prosecutor Alison Morgan KC told the court double figure sentences were appropriate for many of the defendants, who she said had endangered lives and harmed national security.

Evidence placed before the court this week revealed new details of the spy cell's activities as well as their controller for Russian intelligence services Jan Marsalek's life on the run.

A Telegram exchange from August 2021 between Marsalek, an Austrian fugitive who fled fraud charges in Germany, and the UK spy cell's leader, Roussev, indicates the pair were contracted by the CIA to organise an evacuation flight from Kabul airport shortly before a suicide bombing.

"Interesting request from our friends, sort of, at the CIA," Marsalek wrote to Roussev on 17 August 2021. "They urgently need aircraft to fly out contractors from Afghanistan."

In subsequent messages Roussev and Marsalek planned the airlift.

"In the end, they did it," Mark Summers KC said in mitigation for Roussev on Thursday.

"We don't offer that as some humanitarian effort. It was, as with everything else Mr Roussev does, fixing for money. Mr Roussev is not an anti-western ideologue."

On Friday, Rupert Bowers KC, on behalf of Ivanova, told the court that she had been "lied to and manipulated by her partner" Dzhambazov.

Ivanchev's barrister, Mozammel Hossain KC, said his client was the "ultimate minion" and an "outsider in this case".

Stoyanov, according to his barrister Hossein Zahir KC, was "remorseful" and "accepts he acted in a selfish way".

Peter Wright KC said that the messages that Dzhambazov sent did not "contain proposals of harm" and that his client "embellished" his actions to make more money from them.

Further messages, which were not included in evidence during an earlier trial of Ivanova, Ivanchev and Gaberova, reveal Marsalek and Roussev plotted to trade weapons for diamonds.

"We can collect and inspect the diamonds in either Angola, Belgium Congo, Kenya," Roussev wrote to Marsalek.

"These guys want to spend around 60 million on guns and light infantry vehicles and pay with diamonds," he added later.

When Marsalek asked who the end client was, Roussev said: "Allegedly only government… but who knows…"

Marsalek, who is reported to be in Moscow, is the subject of an Interpol Red Notice, following his escape from justice.

Messages reveal he has had plastic surgery to alter his appearance as well as details of his life as a fugitive.

"I'm off to bed. Had another cosmetic surgery, trying to look differently, and I am dead tired and my head hurts," Marsalek wrote to Roussev on Telegram in February 2022.

In another, dated 11 May 2021, Roussev congratulated Marsalek for learning Russian.

"Well I am trying to improve my skills on a few fronts. Languages is one of them," the Austrian responded.

"In my new role as an international fugitive I must outperform James Bond."

In September that year, Marsalek wrote to Roussev complaining about being forced to drink a bottle of gin by "some deep-state guys who's [sic] names no one knows" while stuck between them, "the mafia, half of Russia's ambassadors, the GRU" and "a dozen naked girls".

During an exchange of messages between the pair in April 2021, Marsalek joked to Roussev: "Together we can pretty much organise anything they need except nukes. Even the nukes if they pay."

Ivanova, Gaberova and Ivanchev were convicted of conspiracy to spy for Russia in March following a lengthy trial.

Roussev, Dzhambazov and Stoyanov had previously pleaded guilty.

At the direction of Marsalek, acting on behalf of Russian intelligence services, the cell conducted surveillance operations on targets including investigative journalists, Russian dissidents and political figures.

They targeted Ukrainian soldiers believed to be training to use Patriot Missile Systems at a German military base, in an apparent effort to assist the neutralisation of Ukrainian air defences.

Roussev and Marsalek plotted murder and kidnap in service of the Kremlin, though these plans were never realised.

Ms Morgan read statements from victims of the spy ring's surveillance on Thursday. Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian investigative journalist said it had a "profound and enduring impact" on his life. He described it as "terrifying, disorientating and deeply destabilising".

"The consequences are not easily reversed," he said. "For my family and me the damage is ongoing."