A British court has found two Iranian men guilty of spying on dissident journalists in the United Kingdom on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. The verdict landed on Thursday, and British police said the case reflects a rise in hostile activity by Iran on UK soil. The ruling also adds fresh weight to long-running fears among exiled reporters in London.
The convicted men are Mostafa Sepahvand, 41, and Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46. An official described the pair as “middlemen” for Iranian intelligence. Judges will sentence both men next month. Meanwhile, the case has already spread across borders.
The details shocked many observers. Sepahvand said handlers offered him up to £150,000 to carry out a violent attack on at least one of the targets. Those targets included two journalists from Iran International, the London-based channel that criticises Tehran, and the chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel. Consequently, prosecutors framed the case as part of a wider effort to silence critics abroad.
The legal fallout continues on both sides of the Atlantic. American prosecutors indicted three men over the plot this week. In Britain, two other men still face charges. Therefore, Thursday’s verdict marks only one chapter in a much larger investigation.
Journalists who cover Iran know this pattern well. Police first warned two Iran International presenters in 2022 that they faced credible threats to their lives. ITV News later reported that the Revolutionary Guards planned to kill two of its anchors in London. Soon afterward, a man named Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev went on trial for gathering information on the channel’s headquarters, and police released footage of his arrest.
Violence has also reached British streets. Attackers stabbed Iran International presenter Pouria Zeraati outside his home, and investigators tied that attack to a Tehran-orchestrated plot. Courts later jailed two men recruited by Iran for the stabbing, in a case that exposed how Tehran uses criminal proxies in the UK. As a result, British authorities now treat threats against exiled journalists as a state security issue, not an ordinary crime.
Press freedom groups have raised the alarm for years. After the Dovtaev case, Fiona O’Brien of Reporters Without Borders UK warned that “Iran will stop at nothing to intimidate journalists, abroad just as at home.” She urged the British government to strengthen protection for reporters. Her warning now reads like a preview of this week’s verdict.
Britain’s National Security Act gives police new tools to act. It allows officers to arrest anyone they reasonably suspect of foreign power threat activity, and detectives have used it repeatedly against suspected Iranian operatives. Likewise, police have charged other suspects in separate investigations linked to Iran, which shows how many cases now sit on counter-terrorism desks.
For exiled journalists, the verdict brings relief but little comfort. Courts can convict middlemen, yet the people who allegedly directed them remain far from any British courtroom. Moreover, officials warn that similar plots will keep emerging as long as tensions with Tehran stay high.
Many questions remain open. Prosecutors have not yet shown how far the network stretched, and the pending trials in Britain could reveal more. Observers will also watch the sentencing next month for the length of the jail terms, because those terms will signal how seriously British courts treat foreign-directed surveillance of reporters.
For now, one message stands out. Journalists in London who criticise Tehran are still on the radar of Iranian intelligence, and British police are watching just as closely.
Leave a Reply