A man who claimed to be part of the proscribed organisation the Wagner Group has been jailed for two and a half years.
Piotr Kucharski, 49, attended a Viking combat re-enactment event on 28 October 2023 wearing combat clothing with Wagner Group insignia sewn onto it.
During a conversation with the group, he became aggressive, brandished a knife at other attendees and a made a throat slitting gesture.
Witnesses described how he had told them he had joined the Wagner Group and had fought for the terrorist organisation in Ukraine, a claim he had repeated in various Facebook posts and in messages to contacts.
He had shared images of men in combat outfits holding weapons, implying that he was one of the men photographed and had spoken with a contact asking, ‘are you ready?’ with a link to an article about proscription to the Wagner Group.
In police interview he claimed that he had bought badges and claimed to fight for the group to ‘provoke a reaction’ from the combat re-enactment group because of differences in opinion regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Kucharski attended a hearing on 16 August 2024 at the Central Criminal Court where he pleaded guilty, wearing various symbols associated with extreme right wing ideology and white supremacy.
Frank Ferguson, Chief Crown Prosecutor for Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said: “Piotr Kucharski claimed to be fighting for the Wagner Group as part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and aggressively threatened people with a knife, acting upon his extremist views and the reputation of a terrorist organisation to cause fear in others.”
“The CPS will always seek to prosecute those who support terrorism in any way”
Notes to editors
- Piotr Kucharski (DOB: 20/04/1975) of The Glebe, Watford was sentenced for two years and six months in custody with one year extended licence
He pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court on 16 August 2024, to:
Professing to being a member of a proscribed terrorist organisation, namely the Wagner Group, contrary to S11(1) Terrorism Act
He has one conviction for driving with excess alcohol in the UK (October 2023) and information from Europol indicates that in 2001 and 2008 he was arrested for armed robbery and that he has spent 15 years in prison in Poland.
The Wagner Group were proscribed as a terrorist organisation on 15 September 2023.
The CPS Counter Terrorism Division prosecutes terrorism cases. It deals with other complex casework areas including allegations of incitement to racial and religious hatred, war crimes and crimes against humanity, official secrets cases, piracy and hijacking.
