Topic analysis

London stabbing of journalist was by men working for Iran, court told

A journalist working for a Persian-language opposition television station was attacked with a knife in Wimbledon by men working for Iran as part of a campaign of "Iranian terror", a court was told. Posters of Pouria Zeraati, a journalist for the London-based Iran International, had been put up in the Iranian capital Tehran with the words "Wanted: dead or alive". Two Romanian men - George Stana, 25, and Nandito Badea, 21 - are on trial at Woolwich Crown Court, accused of attacking Zeraati in late March 2024, leaving him in hospital with three stab wounds in his leg. Stana and Badea have both denied charges of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and unlawful wounding. Badea is alleged to have wielded a knife in the attack, while Stana is said to have driven the Mazda used as a getaway car. A third Romanian man, David Andrei, who is accused of holding Zeraati during the attack, is not on trial and is still in Romania. Duncan Atkinson KC for the prosecution told the jury: "This was not a random assault, or a form of robbery. Rather it was a planned and targeted attack." "A planned attack preceded by reconnaissance, and which was ordered by a third party acting on behalf of the Iranian state," he said. Atkinson said that since 2005 "the Islamic Republic has turned less to its own operatives and increasingly to use proxies such as criminal gangs to meet their threatened violence on their behalf". He said people in the UK had "become targets of Iranian intimidation and, effectively, of Iranian terror". He said that in November 2022 posters had been put up in the Iranian capital Tehran which included a picture of Zeraati, under the heading "Wanted: dead or alive". Zeraati's employer, Iran International, had also been designated by the Iranian government as a "terrorist organisation", the jury heard. At one point in 2022 Iran International's offices in London were being protected by armed police. The prosecution said reconnaissance of Zeraati began in March 2023 when Stana was stopped by police in a rear communal garden at Zeraati's address in Wimbledon, having flown in from Bucharest. Officers found him wearing gloves and a blue surgical face mask, and with a pair of scissors in his pocket. An unidentified man with him appeared to be carrying some kind of sports bat in a bag. Stana left the UK for Romania soon afterwards. On this trip, the prosecution said, Stana had been in touch with a contact called "Em" on WhatsApp about the reconnaissance. The messaging included discussions over whether to "poncher" (puncture) Zeraati's tyre. Atkinson said that analysis of mobile phone mast data shows further reconnaissance was carried out by Badea and Andrei in February and March 2024, in the weeks before the knife attack. The Mazda car used in the getaway was bought on 6 March 2024. The prosecution said that more than £80,000 was paid into the Revolut bank account of Stana's sister Florina from a London-based construction company called Hemroc Ltd. Money from her account was then transferred to accounts linked to Badea and Stana, the prosecution said, and she also paid for their flights between Bucharest and London. "That pattern shows that the defendants' presence in the UK was being funded by others, through Hemroc Ltd and Stana's sister," Atkinson said. He said the money transfers had been linked by detectives to a British-Iranian dual national called Edgar Hakkopian. The trial at Woolwich Crown Court is expected to last up to four weeks.