Two Romanian men have been sentenced to prison for the stabbing of a television journalist in London in an attack that a judge ruled was carried out on behalf of the Iranian state. Nandito Badea, 21, and George Stana, 25, were convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and sentenced on Friday at the Old Bailey — London's Central Criminal Court — to eight and twelve years respectively.

The victim, Pouria Zeraati, is a presenter at Iran International, a Persian-language satellite news channel based in London that is sharply critical of Tehran's theocratic government. On 29 March 2024, he was stabbed three times in the thigh outside his home in Wimbledon, a residential area of south-west London. Prosecutors described the assault as "a planned attack preceded by reconnaissance, and which was ordered by a third party acting on behalf of the Iranian state." Badea and a third suspect, David Andrei — who remains in Romania and was not tried in the UK — had visited Zeraati's property eight times across five dates and had flown into Britain specifically for the attack. Stana waited in a getaway car, captured on CCTV during earlier surveillance. After the stabbing, the men fled to Heathrow Airport and flew to Geneva; jurors were told the attackers were seen laughing as they left the scene.

Sentencing the pair, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said the evidence "overwhelmingly points" to the attack being carried out for the benefit of a foreign power. She noted that Zeraati was a well-known critic of the Iranian regime who had previously received threats, as had members of his family. Prosecutors told the court that a billboard bearing his face and the message "Wanted: Dead or Alive" had been displayed in Tehran. Iran International had itself been designated a terrorist organisation by the Iranian state, and in 2023 the broadcaster temporarily relocated its studios to Washington DC following what it described as an escalation of state-backed threats. Iran's senior diplomat in the UK has denied that Tehran was behind the attack.

Zeraati recovered from his injuries and returned to work, but said in a victim impact statement that the incident had left him "scared and anxious" and that he had been forced to relocate abroad for fear of reprisals. Badea and Stana were arrested in Romania in December 2024 and extradited to the UK.

The case has drawn attention to what UK security officials describe as a growing pattern of Iranian proxy operations on British soil. The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, stated last October that more than 20 "potentially lethal Iran-backed plots" had been disrupted in the previous twelve months. Counter-terrorism police noted an "increasing use of so-called proxies by hostile foreign states to conduct illegal activity and attacks in the UK." Britain's security minister, Angela Eagle, said the sentences "send a clear message" and added that the government is fast-tracking legislation to introduce new powers to clamp down on state-linked organisations and those who act as their proxies.