Two men found guilty over Iranian attempts to target UK-based journalists

Two men have been found guilty of assisting Tehran's intelligence services in a campaign of surveillance against people living in the UK, including journalists. Mostafa Sepahvand, 41, and Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46, were convicted at Woolwich Crown Court, a criminal court in London. The Guardian reported that the two men carried out surveillance and reconnaissance between August 2024 and March 2025, in an attempt to inflict violence on their subjects.

The court heard that the people being watched included two journalists from Iran International, a Persian-language news broadcaster: Mojtaba Pourmohsen and Kambiz Hosseini. Another target was Jonathan Turner, a founder member of UK Lawyers for Israel, a group of lawyers. The defendants visited addresses linked to their targets, took photographs and videos, and used ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, to research them online.

Sepahvand used ChatGPT to find the home address of Pourmohsen. He hoped to be paid £150,000 to carry out a violent attack and to help finish off Pourmohsen, according to the case as reported. In December 2024, while spying on Pourmohsen, he communicated on WhatsApp with his handler, a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an Iranian military force. The commander was named in court as Amin.

Hosseini, 51, a standup comedian, had to leave his home and stop working as a result of the threats. He was sent a message containing a picture of his car, which said that the next time he started the engine it would blow up.

Both men came to Britain illegally. Sepahvand arrived in the back of a lorry, and Manesh came in a small boat. Their arrivals took place between 2016 and 2022.

A third defendant, Shapoor Noori, was cleared of assisting a foreign intelligence service and of preparatory conduct, a charge covering acts carried out in preparation for an offence.