A receptionist caught spying for Russia is the victim of her “narcissist” lover who drew her into the world of espionage, her mother has claimed.
Katrin Ivanova, 33, is one of six agents due to be sentenced on Monday at the Old Bailey for involvement in a UK-based spy ring, carrying out operations for the Kremlin.
They targeted opponents of President Vladimir Putin’s regime and investigative journalists, plotted “honeytrap” stings using female spies including Ivanova, carried out surveillance and information gathering, and cooked up plots for kidnap and murder.
Ivanova, a receptionist at a central London medical laboratory, was in a relationship with fellow spy Biser Dzhambazov, 44, and lived with him in Harrow, north-west London.
She only discovered he was cheating on her with another female agent, Vanya Gaberova, 30, when he was arrested while naked in her bed.
Ahead of the judge’s sentencing, Ivanova’s mother told The Times: "My daughter is a victim of manipulation, insinuations, lies. The victim is being brought to justice."
She claims her daughter was "misled in a very unpleasant way", and insisted: “She is not capable of hurting anyone and all the dirt that is being poured on her hurts her even more.”
She pointed to an article entitled "25 signs that your loved one is a narcissist", and claimed her daughter had worked hard – legitimately – while giving money to Dzhambazov for rent and bills.
"If it were given to him [Dzhambazov]...then he spent it on Vanya or another woman", she said
"It's true that justice is blind, but I'm starting to doubt. I only know that my child suffered unjustly."
Ivanova, Gaberova, and Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, 39, were all convicted of conspiracy to spy following a trial, while the leader Orlin Roussev, 47, his second-in-command Dzhambazov, and Ivan Stoyanov, 33, all pleaded guilty to the same charge.
On Friday, Ivanova’s barrister Rupert Bowers KC insisted she had been “lied to and manipulated by her partner” Dzhambazov, as he pleaded for a light sentence.
She was in “no position of trust”, there were “no state secrets at play” and she had no intention to “prejudice the interests of the UK”, he argued.
Mr Bowers highlighted that Ivanova has never argued she was “coerced”, but argued: “The intention she had is a world away from that. It’s a world away from the classic spy case.”
Roussev, who ran the operation from a former Great Yarmouth guest house, was directed in his operations by Russian agent Jan Marsalek, an Austrian businessman wanted by Interpol over a £1.5 billion Wirecard fraud.
Marsalek had a direct line to the Kremlin, it is said, and directed plots including using “lashes queen” Gaberova as a honeytrap to snare a high-profile journalist, dropped 100 litres of pigs’ blood on the Kazakhstan embassy in London by drone, and kidnapping a man on UK soil.
The trial heard Ivanova had arranged flights and hotels for the spies, including when they targeted a US military base in Germany which was training Ukrainian soldiers.
Mr Justice Hilliard is due to pass sentence on Monday afternoon.
