member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist). From May–June 2013 he was in Palestine, where he took part in actions against the Israeli government. While in Palestine Aijo received medical training in the field. On 14 September 2013, in Moscow, Aijo participated in the congress of the political party The Other Russia. On 19 November 2013, Aijo participated in London in a direct action in memory of Aleksandr Dolmatov. On 29 November 2013, he organized in The Hague further direct action in memory of Dolmatov. Beness was arrested and spent six weeks in a Dutch prison. Involvement in pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine Aijo departed for Crimea in 2014. He was arrested in Donetsk on 1 April 2014 for "preparation of an armed coup to overthrow the government and to undermine the territorial integrity of Ukraine" and deported to the United Kingdom, where Aijo took part of demonstrations for a couple of weeks. In May 2014, despite the ban from entering the country for three years, Aijo attempted to cross into Ukraine together with two more activists. He was detained by the Ukrainian Border Guard, and deported to Latvia, where he was detained by the Security Police and the State Police at Riga Airport. Aijo made claims he had been tortured and beaten by the Ukrainian National Guard. On 16 May 2014, the Riga Central District Court ordered Aijo taken into custody and the Security Police commenced criminal prosecution for incitement to violently overthrow the government of Latvia, to change the political system, and to liquidate Latvian national independence. On the night to 30 May petards and smoke grenades were thrown at the Latvian general consulate in St. Petersburg by members of the far-left The Other Russia party, who set up a Soviet flag on the façade of the building, distributed pamphlets and demanded release of Aijo. Aijo has participated in several demonstrations in Riga since, including the 15 August demonstration against Latvia's foreign policy towards Russia and to call for the dismissal of Minister of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkēvičs. In early 2015, with an ongoing criminal case and while being under police surveillance Aijo fled Latvia by hitch-hiking to Tallinn, where he took a ferry to Finland and then traveled to Russia by bus, eventually arriving in Eastern Ukraine. There he joined the armed forces of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic in what he described as "military-political work",