A London court found two Iranian asylum seekers guilty of assisting Tehran’s intelligence services by conducting surveillance on dissidents and journalists in Britain.
A London court on Thursday convicted two Iranian men of spying for Tehran after they conducted surveillance on Persian-language journalists and a lawyer across Britain.
Following a six-week trial at Woolwich Crown Court in south London, Mostafa Sepahvand, 41, and Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46, were found guilty of assisting a foreign intelligence service, BBC News reported. A third defendant, 57-year-old Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, was cleared of the charge and acquitted.
Surveillance and artificial intelligence research
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tasked the two men with tracking targets who were critical of the regime in Tehran, Al Jazeera reported. Prosecutors said Sepahvand gathered intelligence and prepared to carry out a violent attack against at least one person, while Manesh assisted with the planning.
Their targets included Mojtaba Pourmohsen and Kambiz Hosseini, two journalists who worked for Iran International, a London-based Persian broadcaster that Tehran has banned. The pair also carried out surveillance on Jonathan Turner, a founding member of UK Lawyers for Israel, along with a media production professional.
Counterterrorism police seized 534 gigabytes of data that showed the defendants received dossiers with photos of the targets, their workplace addresses, the make and color of their vehicles, and the names of their pets. Sepahvand and Manesh then turned to ChatGPT to gather additional information about the individuals they were following.
Vicki Evans, deputy assistant commissioner and senior national coordinator for Counter-Terrorism Policing at the Metropolitan Police, said the proceedings marked the first time ChatGPT search histories were introduced as evidence in a state threat case. Evans added that investigators are seeing artificial intelligence tools appear more often as the technology becomes widely available.
Unpaid bounties and plans for violence
Evidence presented during the trial showed that Sepahvand grew angry with his Iranian handlers because they didn’t pay him for his work. Evans noted this fits a regular pattern in state espionage cases, where foreign governments offer cash and other promises to foreign operatives but rarely deliver what they promised.
Sepahvand claimed he only took part in the surveillance because he feared the consequences of refusing, but prosecutors called that defense entirely bogus. Voice recordings sent to an Iranian contact revealed that handlers had promised to sort out an existing theft conviction against Sepahvand in Iran, which prosecutors identified as a key motive. Sepahvand also demanded 150,000 pounds in exchange for finishing off one target, telling his handlers he was ready to carry out the act.
Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s counterterrorism division, said the men were promised rewards to send intelligence back to contacts in Iran. Ferguson said Sepahvand was willing to commit serious violence against targets before investigators stopped the plot.
The growing use of proxy operatives
Both defendants lived in west London and were asylum seekers who had received temporary leave to remain in Britain. Sepahvand arrived in the UK in a lorry, while Manesh entered the country in a small boat.
The Metropolitan Police noted that the prosecution is the fourth case in recent years involving direct threats against Iranian journalists in the UK. Evans said Iran has adapted how it uses proxies, at times relying on operatives who fly into the country to commit crimes and quickly leave, British nationals, or Iranian citizens who hold settled immigration status.
Britain outlawed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in July under new state threat powers that carry prison terms of up to 14 years for assisting the organization. The trial also comes after Iran was linked to an alleged plot directed at a United States-run military airbase in England.
What happens next
Sepahvand and Manesh will appear for sentencing at London’s Central Criminal Court, known as the Old Bailey, on December 17.
