Smith, who was employed as a security guard from June 2016 with sensitive level security clearance, collected material including a 'secret' letter sent to then prime minister Boris Johnson and police discovered videos on a camera of an 'extensive walk-around' the embassy.
Smith, who was employed as a security guard from June 2016 with sensitive level security clearance, collected material including a"secret" letter sent to then prime minister Boris Johnson and police discovered videos on a camera of an"extensive walk-around" the embassy.Why you can trust Sky News
A sentencing hearing was told Smith had"strong anti-UK views which he expressed to others" and"also expressed pro-Russia and pro-Putin views." "Plainly, such an individual would be of obvious interest to those that the defendant was in contact with within the Russian embassy," Ms Morgan said.Smith was arrested by the German police and searches revealed that over a period of years, he had been collecting a range of highly sensitive information from and about the embassy.
The files, discovered during searches after his arrest, included 29 pages of images including of staff from the British embassy in Berlin and photographs of diplomatic passports.Police later found a number of images taken in 2021, including a photograph of a whiteboard relating to staff deployments in Berlin, photographs of rooms inside the embassy and communications equipment.
"The prosecution relies on this evidence to demonstrate that the defendant was receiving cash by way of reward for his actions," she said.The court heard Smith claims that his actions were intended to cause"inconvenience and embarrassment" to the British Embassy, motivated by grievances with his employers and that he was suffering from mental health issues.
He was said to have expressed"anti-UK and anti-Germany" views and said he would never go back to Britain. His views about the war in Ukraine were described as"supportive of Russia".From 2019 onwards, employees at the embassy were said to be concerned about Smith's mental health.
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