TWO Iranians who got into the UK illegally were yesterday convicted of spying.
Hitman , 41, was recruited to target and attack two dissident journalists and a pro-Israel lawyer.
He was promised up to £150,000 by agents of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to carry out acts of violence in Britain.
Asylum seeker h, 46, helped him with planning.
The pair, of West London, were found guilty at Woolwich crown court of assisting a foreign intelligence service. They will be sentenced on December 17. Another Iranian, Shapoor Noori, 57, of Ealing, was acquitted of the same charge.
Ex-gym owner Sepahvand was also found guilty of preparing to commit serious violence against a person in the UK.
He arrived in a lorry in 2016 and was granted temporary y. He was wanted for 32 robberies in where in his absence he was jailed for 4½ years and sentenced to 70 lashes. He was believed to be claiming UK while selling cars from his home.
IRGC officers sent Sepahvand files including images of targets, cars, work addresses, and names of . Jonathan Turner, of UK Lawyers for Israel, and two Iranian journalists were in his crosshairs.
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones said the ultimate objective was at least one target “would be subjected to serious violence, no doubt as retribution for their criticism of the Iranian regime”. Sepahvand was paid only £5,000 but did have three months shaved off his robbery sentence in Iran.
Sepahvand and Manesh, who had arrived by small boat and claimed asylum in 2022, used for further research on targets — only the second time an AI tool has been used in a hostile state threat case.
And it is the first time Iranians in the UK have been accused of spying for the IRGC. Their plot was foiled in May last year — with the pair failing to find any targets — following an intelligence-led operation by counter-terror and .
Security Minister Dan Jarvis said: “Threats from Iran are grave and real. This case sends a clear message to those acting in their malign interests, that they will not succeed.”
