Convicted Russian spies attended Brexit match in Parliament

Three Bulgarians convicted of spying for Russia in the past attended an match within the Palace of Westminster, a BBC News investigation has discovered.

Orlin Roussev, Biser Dzhambazov and Katrin Ivanova had been provide at an match to discuss Brexit in a committee room in May 2016.

Photographs posted on social media and unearthed via the BBC display the spies with representatives of European political events.

A parliamentary spokesperson stated Parliament used to be a public construction however that safety processes had been “robust”.

Two individuals who knew Orlin Roussev throughout the related duration showed he used to be the person pictured on the Commons match. The BBC visually reviewed the pictures to verify Dzhambazov’s attendance. Ivanova, additionally visual in images, seems on a listing of people that indicated they’d attend.

The use of the room for the development used to be subsidized via former West Ham MP Lyn Brown, now Baroness Brown of Silvertown. She used to be nominated for a existence peerage via the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

Baroness Brown of Silvertown advised the BBC she had “absolutely no memory” of the development and didn’t consider she had “met or spoken to the three individuals”.

There isn’t any advice of wrongdoing at the a part of both the development’s organisers or attendees.

Katrin Ivanova used to be convicted of offences along Tihomir Ivanchev and Vanya Gaberova between August 2020 and February 2023, following a four-month trial on the Old Bailey in London.

Roussev, the United Kingdom undercover agent cellular’s chief, and Dzhambazov, his number one lieutenant, had already pleaded responsible, together with some other guy, Ivan Stoyanov.

Together, they carried out surveillance operations throughout Europe focused on enemies of Vladimir Putin’s regime, together with investigative newshounds Christo Grozev and Roman Dobrokhotov, in addition to Russian dissidents and political figures.

The six, all based totally in the United Kingdom, will likely be sentenced this week.

A prior BBC investigation named and tracked down two ladies who had been a part of the crowd out of doors of the United Kingdom, who stay loose.

The cellular’s actions had been directed from Russia via Jan Marsalek, an Austrian former finance government reported to be hiding in Moscow having fled fraud fees in Germany following the cave in of bills processing corporate Wirecard.

Marsalek is an asset of Russian intelligence products and services. A cache of tens of hundreds of Telegram messages between Marsalek and Roussev recovered via UK police indicated shut coordination with the Austrian’s “friends in Russia”.

Email exchanges noticed via the BBC display Roussev used to be already in touch with Marsalek by the point of the May 2016 match in Parliament.

Roussev labored as the executive generation officer for a monetary products and services company after transferring to the United Kingdom in 2009. The position additionally required him to spend time in Russia.

But the BBC has been advised that he used to be sacked in 2012 after he used to be stuck siphoning off vital quantities of cash – $130ok (£98ok) – over the process six months.

After being sacked, Roussev posed as a valid businessman at business occasions.

The match in Parliament used to be organised and attended via representatives of European political events, together with the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), which Dzhambazov and Ivanova joined in early 2016.

During the trial, messages between Dzhambazov and Roussev, during which the previous boasted of political connections within the “upper echelon” of the BSP, had been learn into proof. Since 2015, Dzhambazov have been actively concerned within the management of Bulgarian elections in the United Kingdom, by the use of the Embassy. Ivanova and Gaberova additionally labored on this capability at quite a lot of junctures.

Photographs of the development in Parliament, printed on Facebook, display Roussev, Dzhambazov and Ivanova seated in the back of Georgi Pirinski, a US-born former Communist who had served as chair of the Bulgarian National Assembly. At the time of the assembly he used to be a Member of the European Parliament for the BSP, which changed the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1990.

Other attendees pictured come with Roberto Sperenza, who served as Italy’s Minister of Health underneath Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte between 2019 and 2022, representatives of the Social Democratic Party of Romania and a Labour Party councillor.

An access at the BSP web page printed previous to the development claimed it will be attended via “representatives of all parliamentary parties in the UK parliament”. It isn’t transparent if that transpired.

Sir Iain Duncan-Smith MP, a former chief of the Conservative Party, stated Parliament will have to examine whether or not the crowd had accessed the construction on any longer events.

“Parliament should look into what was going on,” he stated.

“It’s so easy to get in and out… Inside that building, they get a chance to bump into, meet, see and even go into offices if we’re not careful.”

A parliamentary spokesperson stated: “Parliament is a public building, and we facilitate the visits of thousands of people to the estate each week.

“We have powerful safety processes in position, with the security and safety of all those that paintings in and talk over with Parliament our most sensible precedence.

“Members in both houses can sponsor events… in accordance with their own judgment,” the spokesperson added.

Concerns have in the past been raised concerning the safety of Parliament within the face of alleged espionage actions via state actors.

In 2024, a former Parliamentary researcher, Christopher Cash, 30, denied spying for China. He will stand trial along Christopher Berry, 33, in October.

Two years previous, MI5 warned an alleged Chinese agent, Christine Lee, had infiltrated Parliament to intrude in UK politics.