A jury at Woolwich Crown Court in London on Thursday, November 12, convicted two Iranian men of helping Iran’s intelligence services by spying on journalists at Iran International, the London-based Persian-language broadcaster that Tehran has banned. One of them was also convicted of preparing an attack on a target he had been watching.
Mostafa Sepahvand, 41, was found guilty of assisting a foreign intelligence service under Section 3 of Britain’s National Security Act 2023, and of preparatory conduct under Section 18 of the same law, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46, was convicted of assisting a foreign intelligence service but acquitted of the preparatory conduct charge. A third defendant, Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 57, was acquitted of all charges.
Both men will be sentenced at the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, on December 17, 2026.
The evidence at trial
Prosecutors said the men carried out surveillance between August 2024 and March 2025. According to the PA news agency’s report of the trial, the targets included Iran International journalists Mojtaba Pourmohsen and Kambiz Hosseini, and Jonathan Turner, a founder member of UK Lawyers for Israel. The CPS headline describes the targets as journalists and a lawyer.
The CPS said videos, images and text messages on the defendants’ devices showed Sepahvand watching targets’ homes and workplaces in order to locate other journalists linked to the channel. Cell-site location data placed him in a particular area of London in late 2024 while he was watching a separate target. His phone also held photographs, Google searches and addresses about one person who had already left home over security concerns and moved into a hotel in west London.
According to the CPS, one message showed Sepahvand asking his contact in Iran for £150,000 to “finish [the target] off” once that person had been found. Prosecutors said Sepahvand intended a “violent attack” on at least one of the people being watched, PA reported. The jury convicted him of preparatory conduct; Manesh was cleared of that charge.
The CPS said Sepahvand ran the contact with handlers in Iran and had been promised “tens of thousands of pounds,” while Manesh fed information, photographs and videos to him. PA reported that the men also used online tools, including ChatGPT, to research their targets.
“This was a calculated operation to spy on those critical of the Iranian regime,” said Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division. He said “Sepahvand himself was willing to go beyond surveillance to commit serious violence against their targets,” adding: “Thankfully, the defendants were stopped before any attack could take place.”
Who was giving the orders
Vicki Evans, Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said Sepahvand was directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or by “middlemen” for Iranian intelligence, Reuters reported. Police said it was the first time Iranian nationals had been convicted under the National Security Act, which Britain passed in 2023 to counter threats from hostile states. Evans said the case “highlights the continuing and increasing threat to the UK from Iran.”
That attribution is the authorities’ account, and readers should understand what the jury did and did not decide. The offense of assisting a foreign intelligence service does not require proof that a defendant dealt directly with an intelligence officer. As PA put it, the trial turned on whether the men’s actions were likely to assist a foreign intelligence service, “regardless of whether direct contact with Iranian intelligence officers could be proven.” The public record so far does not identify the handlers in Iran, and the verdict is not, by itself, a finding about which Iranian agency ran them.
The defense, and Tehran’s denial
PA reported that the court heard there was no dispute that surveillance had taken place, though both convicted men denied the charges. According to the CPS, Sepahvand admitted the spying and admitted it was capable of helping a foreign intelligence service, but argued he had been forced into it out of fear of what would happen if he refused. The jury rejected that defense.
Iran has repeatedly denied spying in Britain. Reuters reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said he was “disturbed” when Sepahvand and others were arrested in May 2025. No Iranian government reaction to Thursday’s verdicts had been reported at the time of writing.
The acquittals also matter. The jury cleared Noori completely and cleared Manesh of preparing an attack. On the evidence presented, only one of the three defendants was found to have planned violence.
Why it matters beyond London
Jurors heard that Iran International journalists had faced threats linked to their reporting on Iran, PA reported. The verdict lands one day after RSN reported a US indictment of three people over Iran-backed plots, including one aimed at RAF Fairford. The CPS described a similar pattern in the London case: “Cases like this show Iranian intelligence’s willingness to use proxies to target the regime’s critics abroad.”
Analysis, not established fact: The case points to a recurring method. Hired surveillance, paid in promises, carried out by people with no diplomatic cover, can be denied by the state behind it. Whether British prosecutors can reach anyone above the hired hands is an open question. Nothing in the public record so far suggests they can.
Sources
- Crown Prosecution Service, “Two men who spied on journalists and lawyer guilty of spying on behalf of Iran,” November 12, 2026: cps.gov.uk
- Reuters, “Iranian men found guilty in UK of assisting Iranian intelligence,” November 12, 2026, read in verbatim wire syndication: internazionale.it
- PA news agency via AOL UK, “Two men found guilty of helping Iranian spy operation targeting UK-based critics,” November 12, 2026: aol.co.uk
Featured image: Woolwich Crown Court, by N Chadwick, via Wikimedia Commons (geograph.org.uk), licensed CC BY-SA 2.0.
How this article was made: Right Side News researched and drafted this article with the help of AI tools. Sources are linked so readers can check them. Spot an error? Tell us in the comments and we will correct it.
