Mostafa Sepahvand in London court: an IRGC officer threatened to kill me

Mostafa Sepahvand, a 41-year-old man accused in London of spying for the Islamic Republic and preparing a violent attack on Iranian journalists, claimed at Woolwich Crown Court that a man who introduced himself as an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer based in the UK had threatened to kill him and his mother. British prosecutors consider the claim fabricated and say he worked for money and to resolve his criminal case in Iran.

Sepahvand, together with 46-year-old Farhad Javadi-Manesh and 57-year-old Shapour Ghale-Ali Khani Nouri, is charged under the UK's National Security Act with conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service. According to prosecutors, from July/August 2024 to February/March 2025 the three kept watch on the activities of Iran International journalists and gathered information for the Islamic Republic's intelligence service in order to lay the ground for "serious violence" against at least one of them; Sepahvand was to carry out the attack. Mojtaba Pourmohsen and Kambiz Hosseini, two journalists of the channel, are among the named targets. All three defendants deny the charges.

Sepahvand's account of the threat from "Abi"

Sepahvand told the court in his defence sessions that in 2024, after a video of him about dental treatment was posted on a clinic's Instagram page, a man named "Abi", who lived in Wolverhampton, called him on video, showed the flag of the Islamic Republic and threatened to kill him if he did not carry out orders. According to him, he paid no attention to the threats until the caller named his mother. Sepahvand also said the window of his car was smashed and people entered his home in Westminster, but he accepted that he had not seen who did these things.

Prosecutors reject this account. In earlier sessions, messages were shown to the court that spoke of a promised payment of 150,000 pounds and of reassuring Sepahvand about resolving his case in Iran. The two other defendants have accepted that they visited locations and took photos and video, but say they did not know they were helping the Islamic Republic's intelligence service.

Transnational repression of free-media journalists

Journalists of independent Persian-language media in London have for years been targets of threats from the Islamic Republic; Pouria Zeraati, an Iran International presenter, was stabbed outside his home in London in March 2024. The case is being heard as a Hamburg court convicted two men over a plot to attack on the IRGC's orders and as the British government has accused the IRGC of involvement in a plot to attack the Fairford base.

British prosecutors say Sepahvand was watching Iran International journalists in return for a promise of 150,000 pounds.