Russian spy working in British embassy in Berlin jailed for more than 13 years

28 comments
  1. Sad, he’s not going to be able to afford the cosmetic surgery he needs to appear attractive to George Clooney.

  2. So treason now gets less than 15 years

    He’ll be out in under 7

    Sorry but treason should carry a whole life sentence unless there is mitigating factors

  3. I think this is slap on the wrist. It’s one thing I would support capital punishment for if proven beyond reasonable doubt – or at very least life in prison without possibility of early release.

  4. This guy got off lightly. Compare to sentencing for dealing in controlled substances or fraud. Doesn’t seem like a serious deterrent.

  5. I don’t understand why everyone is so bloodthirsty about this and talking about the death penalty. That’s the kind of barbaric response you’d expect from a totalitarian state, for example Russia.

    10+ years seems appropriate to me for what he did. Ultimately he’s a nobody and the information he shared doesn’t seem important or critical.

  6. Treason.

    I hate our policy towards Russia and Ukraine as much as the next guy, but I wouldn’t sell out my country for a foreign country no matter how much I disagreed.

  7. He got off very lightly. If this was an American case, he could expect to be spending the rest of his days in a supermax prison, like ADX Florence.

  8. There’s a lot of bloodthirsty armchair patriots in here.

    Meanwhile, some blokey was posted out in a foreign country, was drinking heavily, and expressing distaste for *something* about the UK. What caused that? It’s all well and good chatting shit about locking away someone who divulged information to the russians, but without putting proper support systems for individuals who feel personally or generally wronged by the state, this sort of shit is just going to happen again.

    I mean, haway. He was literally openly admitting this in front of employees. How obvious does a need have to be before we get on top of it?

  9. This guy was pro-Russian because he opposed the Tory government? But reddit’s always telling me the Tories are pro-Russian and funded by Russia.

  10. [According to the Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/17/british-guard-david-smith-jailed-13-years-spying-for-russia-at-uk-embassy-in-berlin):

    >Smith, a former aircraftman with the RAF, had **married a Russian-speaking Ukrainian** who had returned to the **Donbas** region in July 2018, leaving him alone in his flat, drinking up to seven pints a day, he told the court.
    >
    >On the inside of his locker at the British embassy was a cartoon of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in a military uniform, **holding the neck of the former German chancellor Angela Merkel, in a Nazi uniform, and the words in German: “Russia, please free us once again.”** There was also a dictionary of Russian obscenities.

    What the hell of it?

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