Mostafa Sepahvand in London court: I met an IRGC agent at the Islamic Republic's embassy

Mostafa Sepahvand, one of three defendants in the case of gathering information for an attack on Iran International journalists, told the tenth session of the trial at Woolwich Crown Court in London on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, that on 15 February 2025 he went with one of the other defendants to the Islamic Republic's embassy in London and met there a man named "Navid Emami", whom Sepahvand described as a colleague of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

According to Sepahvand, he told Navid at that meeting that the addresses of the journalists he had been given were wrong, but that he would keep pursuing the matter. He said the addresses had been given to him by this same man. Messages read earlier in court had shown that a number in Sepahvand's phone was saved under a name linking Navid to the embassy.

Money, journalists' addresses and a government budget

Answering his lawyer's questions, Sepahvand said that after the address of Mojtaba Pourmohsen, an Iran International journalist, came up, 30,000 pounds were sent to a currency exchange in Finchley, London, but he did not collect the money. He said he had initially asked for 150,000 pounds and that a man he calls "Haji" had a government budget for the job.

He admitted asking Farhad Javadi-Manesh, another defendant in the case, to film the car of Kambiz Hosseini, an Iran International presenter, and to watch his home. Sepahvand said his threats and promises of an attack were only meant to convince the IRGC and that he never intended to harm anyone; the prosecutor has earlier called this claim entirely bogus.

The charges and the defendants' defence

Mostafa Sepahvand, Farhad Javadi-Manesh and Shapour Ghalehalikhani Nouri are being tried under the UK's National Security Act and have denied all charges. The prosecution says that from August 2024 to March 2025 they gathered information for the Islamic Republic's intelligence apparatus to pave the way for serious violence against targets including Pourmohsen and Hosseini. According to the prosecution, Sepahvand's motive was the promise of money and help in resolving his criminal case in Iran. The other two defendants accept that they visited the addresses and took photos, but say they did not know this was connected to the Islamic Republic's intelligence apparatus.

At an earlier session Sepahvand also said that a man who introduced himself as an IRGC officer had threatened to kill him. The case is part of a wider pattern of the Islamic Republic's transnational repression against journalists and opponents on British soil.

The main defendant in the case of spying on Iran International journalists named the Islamic Republic's embassy in London as the place where he met an IRGC colleague.