A spy inside the British embassy was snared betraying his country by an undercover MI5 operation involving an agent posing as a Russian intelligence officer called Irina, a court has heard.
David Smith, 58, was a security guard in the British embassy in Berlin who hated the UK and kept a cartoon of Vladimir Putin holding Angela Merkel’s severed head in his work locker.
As far back as 2018, the ex-Royal Air Force officer began gathering sensitive information about British interests and is alleged to have given them to Russia in exchange for money.
Secret information he was found to be in possession of included details of embassy officials working in sensitive roles and their addresses and video of individuals from CCTV recordings in the building.
Smith pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey in November to eight charges of having “leaked details about the identities and activities of UK agents” to General Major Sergey Chukhrov at Berlin’s Russian Embassy.
Setting out the prosecution case at the start of the sentencing hearing on Monday, Alison Morgan KC said Smith became the focus of an MI5 operation after German police intercepted a letter he had sent to the general.
It was a two-part sting which saw the Security Service firstly stage a bogus meeting between a British official and purported Russian mole called “Dmitry”, before later that week he was approached in the street by an MI5 agent posing as a Russian spy called “Irina”.
She noted that Smith had shown a “keen engagement” to work with Dmitry and that the operation had begun as a result of Smith’s letter to General Chukhrov.
Alison Morgan KC said that the operation gave Smith “opportunities that were presented in the undercover operation” to gather information on Dmitry and that following his arrest it became clear he had been gathering materials for some time from the embassy that would be “directly or indirectly useful” to the Russian Federation, receiving “substantial amounts of cash” at the same time unexplained by any legitimate form of income.
Subsequently he was approached by the MI5 officer known as Irina who requested his help on behalf of the GRU, the Russian intelligence service and agreed to meet with her on August 10 2021
Smith was then arrested by German authorities and searches of his apartment in Potsdam established “that over a period of years, the defendant had been collecting a range of highly sensitive information from and about the embassy”.
During the search of his apartment eight 100 Euro notes were found, which prosecutors say could not be accounted for and that “it can be inferred that the money came from another source”.
Ms Morgan said that his “financial patterns changed” and that the prosecution submitted that a lack of cash withdrawals from his accounts suggested an alternative income source.
Although Smith has pleaded guilty to the offences, Mr Justice Wall is being asked to determine his level of culpability.
The spy has claimed his actions “were intended to cause inconvenience and embarrassment to the British embassy”, while prosecutors allege he was trying to directly harm UK interests.
Ms Morgan said that Smith was known to harbour “strong anti-UK view which he expressed to others” and that he also expressed views “in support of Russia and Vladimir Putin”.
The hearing continues.