UK court convicts two men of spying for Iran

A British court has convicted two Iranian men of spying for Iran after they monitored journalists and a lawyer in the United Kingdom, in a case prosecutors said could have led to a violent attack.

Mostafa Sepahvand, 41, and Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46, were found guilty Thursday at Woolwich Crown Court in south London of assisting a foreign intelligence service. Prosecutors said their surveillance was intended to help Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps target people in the UK. A third defendant, Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 57, was acquitted.

The targets included Mojtaba Pourmohsen and Kambiz Hosseini, journalists at the London-based Persian-language broadcaster Iran International, and Jonathan Turner, a founding member of UK Lawyers for Israel. The BBC reported that a media production professional was also among those monitored. Iran International is banned by Tehran’s government.

“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 counterterrorism division. He said the men had been promised rewards for sending intelligence to contacts in Iran. Sepahvand was prepared to go beyond surveillance and commit serious violence, prosecutors said.

According to the BBC, police seized 534 gigabytes of data showing the men had received documents containing photographs of targets, work addresses, vehicle descriptions and even the names of pets. They visited addresses linked to the targets, took photographs and videos, and used ChatGPT for further research. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans said it was the first time ChatGPT search history had been presented in a state-threat case.

The BBC reported that Sepahvand was in contact with two men using Iranian telephone numbers. In voice notes to an Iranian contact, he said he had been promised that a theft conviction in Iran would be “sorted out,” and he sought £150,000 in exchange for “finishing off” a target. He said he would “do it.” Sepahvand claimed he took part because he feared the consequences of refusing, a claim prosecutors called “entirely bogus.” Evidence at trial also showed that he felt mistreated by handlers who had not paid him, the BBC reported.

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

The Metropolitan Police said this was the fourth case in recent years involving a direct threat to Iran International journalists in the UK. Evans said Iran continued to adapt its use of “proxies” and that police were working to keep the journalists safe.

CBS News reported that the Iranian Embassy in the UK has said it “categorically rejects” allegations of involvement in violent activities or incidents in the country.

Sepahvand and Manesh are due to be sentenced at London’s Old Bailey on December 17.