Suspects in Russian-led explosive parcels plot face life sentences, Poland says

WARSAW, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Five men have been charged in Poland with taking part in a Russian-run sabotage plot to send explosive parcels to Britain, the U.S., Canada and other destinations, and will face life sentences if convicted, prosecutors said on Friday.

The four Ukrainian citizens and one Russian were charged "with acting ... on behalf of the intelligence services of the Russian Federation," the National Prosecutor's Office said in a statement.

There was no immediate reaction from Russia which has regularly denied accusations of stepping up sabotage attacks in the region following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Moscow says the West is trying to stoke anti-Russian feeling.

The five were accused of committing or preparing acts of sabotage against logistics and aviation infrastructure, the prosecutors' statement read.

One, named as Vladyslav D., was planning to prepare parcels with hidden incendiary devices and explosives and forward them for shipment to Britain and Poland, the statement said.

Another, Viacheslav C., was planning "future sabotage activities" including the sending of two test packages to the U.S. and Canada, it added.

A third, Vladyslav B., was accused of receiving, securing and transporting packages between Lithuania's capital Vilnius and its central city of Kaunas, the statement said.

The prosecutors said they had presented five bills of indictment to a court which will now take over the case.

"The accused face a sentence of life imprisonment," National Prosecutor's Office spokesperson Przemyslaw Nowak said.

The sabotage plot led to three parcels being detonated at courier depots in Britain, Germany and Poland in 2024, a person familiar with the Polish investigation told Reuters last year.

Massage pillows were packed with homemade incendiary devices made of a cocktail of chemicals including highly reactive magnesium into the parcels with the cosmetics and sex toys, the source said.

Last year, Lithuania separately said that detonations of parcels carried by DHL were organised and supervised by Russian citizens with ties to Russian military intelligence.

Charges were not formally presented to a sixth suspect Jaroslaw. M., a Russian citizen. Poland has been trying to extradite him from Azerbaijan, prosecutors said.