A man who shared highly sensitive information with Russia while working as a security guard at the British embassy in Berlin has been sentenced to 13 years and two months in prison by a London court.

David Ballantyne Smith, 58, collected confidential information for more than three years, including “secret” government communications with then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other sensitive documents.

Judge Mark Wall said the charges Smith was sentenced on took place between 2020 and 2021, but that his “subversive activities had begun two years earlier.”

Smith sent two letters containing confidential information to people at the Russian embassy in Berlin. “I’m sure that, at some point in 2020, he made regular contact with someone at the Russian embassy,” Mark Wall said. “The Russians paid him,” he told Smith.

The defendant, who worked for five years at the British embassy in Germany, pleaded guilty in November to violating the official secrets law and, according to the prosecution, he did so out of intense hatred for his country.

Smith sent a letter to a member of the military staff at the Russian embassy in Berlin with documents that included names, addresses and telephone numbers of employees of the British legation. When the British and German authorities learned of the letter, they orchestrated a trap to try to catch him red-handed.

A British agent posed as a Russian citizen named Dmitri who wanted to pass on sensitive information to the UK embassy. Smith filmed footage of himself inside the legation and saved information from a phone SIM card instead of destroying it as ordered.

Another contact posed as a Russian military intelligence GRU agent named Irina and Smith kept an appointment with her in central Berlin, shortly after which he was arrested. According to the accusation, the Briton, married to a Ukrainian, was motivated by his hatred of the United Kingdom and Germany.

Earlier this week, Smith confessed in court that he was “disgusted with myself and ashamed of what I did” and had started collecting confidential information during a dispute with colleagues and while suffering from depression.

He said he had recorded the documents after drinking “seven pints of beer”, adding: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” The judge rejected Smith’s evidence that he felt remorse, saying, “Your remorse is nothing more than self-pity.”

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