Two men have been sentenced at the Old Bailey in London over the stabbing of an Iranian journalist who was attacked outside his home in 2024. The case has drawn wide attention because police and prosecutors say the assault was directed from abroad and aimed at a broadcaster whose work is critical of the Iranian government. The sentencing brought to a close a trial that stretched over several weeks and cast a spotlight on the threats faced by journalists working in exile.
The victim was named as Pouria Zeraati, a presenter for a Persian-language television channel that reports critically on the authorities in Tehran. He was attacked outside his home in Wimbledon, in south-west London, in March 2024, when he was stabbed three times in the leg. He was taken to hospital with his injuries, and later said he had immediately realised that the assault was not a robbery, because none of his valuables had been taken from him.
Zeraati told the court that he believed he had been targeted because of his work for the television station, and that he had received threats in the period leading up to the attack. Prosecutors described a planned operation preceded by reconnaissance around his home over an extended period, rather than a random or opportunistic act of violence against him on the street that day.
According to the account presented in court, the men involved waited near Zeraati's house for around three hours before he emerged. When he came out, one of them held onto him while another stabbed him in the leg. The attackers then fled to a waiting car driven by one of the accused, before abandoning the vehicle in another part of the city and wiping it down in an apparent effort to remove fingerprints and forensic evidence.
The two men sentenced were named as George Stana, aged 25, and Nandito Badea, aged 21, a former footballer. Stana was described as having driven the getaway car, while the attack itself was carried out by his accomplices. Both had denied the charges but were convicted last month of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and they sat in the dock listening through an interpreter as their sentences were read out.
The judge sentenced George Stana to 12 years in prison and Nandito Badea to eight years. Prosecutors told the court that those who took part in the attack had been generously funded, and investigators traced how the group left the country afterwards, travelling from Heathrow onwards through Switzerland. A third man who is said to have taken part fled abroad and is now the subject of an Interpol red notice.
British police and the prosecution service said the attack had been ordered by the Iranian government and carried out by proxies acting on its behalf. Counter-terrorism officials warned that false promises are being made to those recruited to carry out such attacks, and said this pattern of using intermediaries to target individuals in the United Kingdom had become far more prevalent in recent years.
The sentencing was seen as a significant moment in a case that authorities have treated as an example of a foreign state reaching into Britain to intimidate its critics. For Zeraati and others in his position, the outcome offered a measure of accountability, even as the search continues for the man who evaded arrest and questions remain about the wider network said to have been behind the planning of the attack.