UK court convicts two Iranian men of spying on journalists

London: Two Iranian men who spied on journalists working for a Persian-language broadcaster in London were found guilty Thursday, November 12, of spying for Iran.

Following a six-week trial at Woolwich Crown Court in south London, Mostafa Sepahvand, 41, and Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46, were convicted of engaging in conduct likely to assist the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The IRGC was outlawed by the UK in July under new powers to counteract state threats, with penalties of up to 14 years in prison for anyone convicted of supporting or assisting the organisation.

A third defendant, Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 57, was acquitted on all charges.

“This was a calculated operation to spy on those critical of the Iranian regime,” said Frank Ferguson, chief prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service’s special crime and counter-terrorism division.

He said the pair were promised rewards in exchange for sending intelligence back to Iran, while Sepahvand was willing to go beyond surveillance to commit serious violence against their targets.

These included journalists for Iran International, Mojtaba Pourmohsen and Kambiz Hosseini, and a founding member of UK Lawyers for Israel, Jonathan Turner. Iran International is banned by the government in Tehran.

London’s Metropolitan Police said this was the fourth case in recent years involving a direct threat to Iran International journalists and that it is “working hard to keep them safe”.

“The threat from hostile states to the UK is increasing and Iran continues to adapt its approach to using proxies’,” said Vicki Evans, a deputy assistant commissioner at the London police.

“We have seen examples of people who fly into the country to carry out criminal activity and then leave shortly afterwards, to using British nationals or, in this case, Iranian nationals with settled immigration status,” she added.

Counterterrorism police have looked into the possible involvement of Iranian proxies in a series of recent incidents, particularly attacks on the Jewish community in London, including the arson attack on four Jewish community ambulances earlier this year that many said was a direct result of the start of the Iran war.

Most recently, Iran has been linked with a plot against a US-run military air base in England.

The Iranian Embassy in the UK has said that it “categorically rejects” allegations of involvement in “violent activities or incidents in the United Kingdom”.

Sepahvand and Manesh were accused of visiting addresses linked to their targets, taking photos and videos, and using platforms such as ChatGPT to research them online.

“Thankfully, the defendants were stopped before any attack could take place,” prosecutor Ferguson said.

The pair will be sentenced at London’s Central Criminal Court, better known as the Old Bailey, on Dec 17.

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