LONDON (CU)_A former security guard at the British Embassy in Berlin has been charged with spying for the Russian government. The 57-year-old British national is charged under the Official Secrets Act 1911, for alleged offences committed between October 2020 and August 2021.
In August last year, David Ballantyne Smith, a resident of Potsdam, was previously employed as a security guard at the embassy. He was arrested by German police are charged with offences related to “the collection and communication of information useful to the Russian state”. He was extradited to the UK on Wednesday (6 April) and is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday. According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), one of the charged faced by Smith relates to allegedly passing information to an individual he believed was a Russian state representative.
“He is accused of seven offences of collecting information with the intent of sending it to the Russian authorities, one of attempting communication, and one of providing information to a person he believed was a member of the Russian authorities,” Nick Price, head of the special crime and counter terrorism division at the CPS, said. “After reviewing the case and authorising charges, we obtained an extradition warrant and worked closely with our German counterparts in order to bring Mr Smith back to the UK.”
During the Cold War era, Berlin was often labelled ‘the capital of spies’, since the city was on the frontlines of the confrontation between the Soviets on one side and the Americans and their western allies on the other. However, following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Cold War not long after, Espionage activities were believed to have abated. However, amid growing geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe as a result of Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine, relations between Moscow and the West, has once again chilled, putting espionage back in the spotlight.
