A NEIGHBOUR told yesterday how a suspected Russian spy living next door wrestled him to the ground during a row over a garden bonfire.
Dad-of-five Aston Phillips, 37, said powerful Bizer Dzhambazov grabbed him so hard it felt like a “deathly vice”, adding: “I knew then he had military training.”
Mr Phillips said he was reeling after reading in The Sun that bald Dzhambazov, 41, was a suspected stooge of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and had been arrested under the Official Secrets Act.
Unemployed Mr Phillips, of Orpington, South East London, said his Russian-speaking neighbour and missus, Katrin Ivanova, 31, fled their semi soon after a resident called police about the bust-up.
He said: “My blood ran cold when I saw who’d been nicked in that alleged spy ring.
“That suspected deadly sleeper agent I know as a neighbour from hell who went for me over a garden bonfire.
“He was so angry that smoke was billowing over the fence he asked me to the front of the house to ‘have a word’.
“When I went to speak to him, he gripped me so hard and held me in a deathly vice.
“He ripped my T-shirt and strangled me. I knew then that this man had a military past.
“Police were called by another resident who saw us brawling and officers turned up.
“Almost overnight the couple disappeared. It was baffling at the time but now I think they didn’t want to be probed even over something so trivial.”
Mr Phillips’ mother, Adele Lee, 63, claimed suspected spy ringleader Orlin Roussev, 45, was a regular visitor to Dzhambazov’s home.
She said: “The two burly men would neck vodka in the back garden then smash their glasses.
“He installed CCTV around his house and would cut down my trees if he thought they were blocking his camera.
“One time we had an almighty row because he had an air rifle and was taking practice shots in his back garden. I was worried I’d get shot.
“He was very hostile. If anyone parked near his drive he’d go mad, too.”
Hospital driver Dzhambazov, lab assistant Ivanova, of Harrow, North West London, and Roussev, of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, have been charged under the Identity Documents Act 2010 with possessing passports and identity cards knowing they were fake.
Two other suspects have been bailed by police.
