London court hears stabbing of journalist Pouria Zeraati was ordered on behalf of Iran

A London court has heard that the stabbing of journalist Pouria Zeraati in Wimbledon was a planned attack ordered by a third party acting on behalf of the Iranian state. Two Romanian men, George Stana, 25, and Nandito Badea, 21, are on trial at Woolwich Crown Court over the assault, which prosecutors say left Zeraati with three stab wounds in his leg. The case centres on an attack in late March 2024 near his home in south-west London.

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Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC told the jury the violence was not a random assault or robbery, but a targeted operation preceded by reconnaissance. He said the attack formed part of a campaign of Iranian intimidation and terror, and that people in the UK had become targets of Iranian intimidation. The court heard that Stana and Badea deny charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and unlawful wounding.

The prosecution says Badea wielded the knife during the attack, while Stana drove the Mazda used as a getaway car. A third Romanian man, David Andrei, is accused of holding Zeraati during the assault but is not on trial and remains in Romania. Prosecutors also said reconnaissance began in March 2023, when Stana was stopped by police in a rear communal garden at Zeraati's address in Wimbledon after flying in from Bucharest.

The case has drawn attention because it places allegations of foreign-directed violence against a journalist at the centre of a criminal trial in the UK. Zeraati works for Iran International, a London-based Persian-language television station that the Iranian government has designated a terrorist organisation, according to the court account. Prosecutors said posters had been put up in Tehran in November 2022 showing Zeraati and other journalists with the words "Wanted: dead or alive".

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That background was presented by the prosecution as evidence that Zeraati was a known target before the stabbing. Atkinson told the court that since 2005 the Islamic Republic had increasingly used proxies such as criminal gangs rather than its own operatives to carry out threatened violence. He said the attack on Zeraati should be understood in that wider context, linking the case to concerns about intimidation of dissidents and journalists outside Iran.

The trial is continuing, and the defendants maintain their not guilty pleas. It remains unclear how the court will assess the prosecution's claim that the attack was ordered on behalf of the Iranian state, and the role of the third alleged participant is also unresolved in this trial. What happens next will depend on the evidence heard in court and whether prosecutors can prove the alleged chain of planning, reconnaissance and direction.

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