The former guard was charged under the Official Secrets Act 1911 and the Official Secrets Act 1920, relating to “the collection and communication of information useful to the Russian state” between October 2020 and August 2021. One of the charges he admitted included an allegation that “for a purpose prejudicial to the state” he attempted to contact a General Sergei Chukhurov, the Russian military attaché based at the Russian Embassy in Berlin. The material sent to General Chukhurov “contained details of the activities, identities, addresses and telephone numbers of various members of Her Majesty’s Civil Service”. In an earlier hearing Smith was described as having an “intense hatred of the British embassy in Berlin” and “the UK in general”, which he disputes. He is also alleged to have collected material relating to the operation and layout of the British Embassy in Berlin and that the information may have been intended to be “directly or indirectly” useful to an enemy, namely the Russian state. Other charges relating to events on 5 August 2021 alleged that Smith “made unauthorized copies” of documents, kept SIM card packaging “intended to be discarded” and taped CCTV footage from the embassy. He also admitted allegations that he collected material classified as “Secret” about the activities of Her Majesty’s Government in Berlin. Defense barrister Matthew Ryder KC told the hearing that Smith was not acting out of a desire to harm the UK. He said: “There is a very wide difference between the Crown and Mr Smith as to his motives. “His intent and why he did what he did and the seriousness of the allegations are disputed by Mr Smith. “It is fair to say that there is a significant difference as to the basis on which Mr Smith pleaded guilty, including that he did not have the negative intent towards the UK that the prosecution alleged against him.” Reference restrictions in the case were lifted by Mr Justice Wall on Friday after the prosecution said it would not seek to try Smith on the one charge to which he has pleaded not guilty.
It was caught on hidden CCTV
Smith, who faces a maximum of 14 years in prison for espionage, will be sentenced at a later date. He was captured on hidden CCTV at the embassy taking images from the building’s CCTV security system on August 5, 2021. At one point he was heard saying: “This will happen. I’ll get the rest tomorrow.” The following day he was again captured on hidden CCTV controlling the embassy’s camera system and filming “special sections” of it. As a result of the joint investigation, Smith was arrested by German police the next day at his home in Potsdam, 21 miles west of Berlin, after he had left work early complaining of feeling unwell. Several multimedia devices were found and confiscated at his home. The prosecution says these included CCTV footage he had recorded, images from security clearances for embassy staff, personal information about embassy staff and emails and documents marked ‘Secret’. The prosecution said that suspicions about his behavior grew after it was found that he was “living beyond his means and that he regularly overdrafted”. During the search of his apartment, eight 100-euro notes were found, which prosecutors said could not be accounted for and that “it can be inferred that the money came from another source.” He was extradited to the UK in April after losing his battle to stay in Germany, where he is believed to have lived for the past 16 years.
How British Embassy spy David Smith ‘hid in plain sight’
By Patrick Sawer, Potsdam, Germany To his neighbors he was an enigma, a man who worked as a security officer at the British embassy in Berlin but kept memorabilia of the old Soviet Union on open display in the front room of his ground-floor flat. To those who periodically spotted him on his local shopping parade, David Smith also seemed like an old romantic, regularly buying white roses for his wife or enjoying a cappuccino and croissant at a roadside cafe. What no one expected was that the 58-year-old, from Paisley, Scotland, would turn out to be a spy.
