A British security guard at the UK Embassy in Berlin has admitted to spying on behalf of Russia from May 2020 up until his arrest by German authorities in August 2021.
A story which seems to have been taken straight out of a Cold War-era spy novel, David Smith, a security guard at the British embassy, pleaded guilty in London to eight charges under the Official Secrets Act.
The 58-year-old British national was arrested in August 2021 with €800 of cash in his apartment in Potsdam, Germany. He had worked as a security guard at the embassy for eight years as a locally-recruited staff member.
Smith is alleged to have an “intense hatred” of his own country to the point he was motivated to hurt it, and is said to have wanted to move to Russia or Ukraine as he passed on intelligence.
The charges the man was facing included handing over addresses, phone numbers and activities of various British civil servants, and had been in contact with the Russian General Major Sergey Chukhurov, a Russian military attache based in Berlin.
Smith collected intelligence – some of it classified as secret – and passed on information to “an enemy, namely the Russian state,” detailing the activities of the British government and its embassy.
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BBC’s Security Correspondent Gordon Corera believes that as a security guard, he would not have had access to the highest levels and top secret documents. Nonetheless, he would have passed on useful information, such as the identity of British intelligence officers.
After pleading guilty, Smith will be sentenced at a later date is facing a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
