A British court has sentenced an Austrian born in Chechnya to three and a half years in prison, convicting him of carrying out "hostile reconnaissance" against a London-based Iranian television channel.
Last Wednesday, a jury in London convicted Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev following a brief trial.
Dovtaev, 31, pleaded not guilty to possession of records containing information likely to be helpful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.
He was detained by counterterrorism officers in west London last Feb. 11.
The Public Prosecution said that Dovtaev went to London to gather "hostile information" in connection with a building housing the Persian-language channel Iran International, whose journalists report on human rights violations believed to be being committed in Iran.
Paul Kelleher, Dovtayev's defense attorney, said there was every possibility his client was a "useful idiot" and that claims Iran would contemplate a terrorist attack on a news organization in England were "far-fetched."
But Judge Richard Marks expressed his "satisfaction with the criminal standards of evidence that an attack of some sort on Iran International was the plan of those behind this."
Iran refuted the British media's false allegations about harming presenters and broadcasters.
Iranian Chargé d'Affaires in London Mehdi Hosseini Mateen denied the British media's accusations of an "alleged Iranian plot" to assassinate two international television broadcasters living in London.
Mehr News Agency reported on Friday that Mateen rejected the claims of ITV News, saying they were baseless and similar to a Hollywood movie.
ITV News previously published a report claiming that the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had contacted a human trafficker in Oct. 2022, offering $200,000 to assassinate two international broadcasters in London.
The Iranian Chargé d'Affaires said that the report claimed that the person hired was a double agent working with a Western intelligence organization and uncovered the plot.
Mateen added that regardless of the undeniable violent behaviors of the alleged London-based TV network against Iranian national security, Tehran is not linked to those who made these allegations.
The Iranian government classified Iran International as a terrorist organization based on its coverage of the protests that broke out in the country following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
Amini died in September 2022, three days after the morality police in Tehran arrested her. Her death sparked widespread protests against political and religious leaders in Iran.
The suppression of these protests led to the deaths of hundreds, and the authorities arrested thousands of people.
