A terror scout has been jailed for three-and-a-half years for spying on a dissident Iranian television channel before a “planned attack” on British soil.
Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev, 31, carried out hostile reconnaissance for others unknown at the London headquarters of Persian-language television channel Iran International in February.
After a trial at the Old Bailey, the Chechnya-born Austrian was found guilty of trying to collect information for terrorist purposes.
Mitigating, Paul Keleher KC said there was every possibility Dovtaev was a “useful idiot” employed to go Iran International to provoke a security response and “put the wind up” employees.
He said the idea Iran would contemplate a terrorist attack on a news organisation in England was “far-fetched”.
In his sentencing remarks, Judge Richard Marks KC said those behind the defendant’s actions planned an attack on Iran International.
He said: “There is of course no direct evidence in this case as to the precise use to which the video footage, if obtained, would have been put by others, but I am satisfied to the criminal standard of proof that an attack of some sort on Iran International was the plan of those who were behind this.
“It is significant, in my judgment, that following your arrest still and video images were recovered from your phone, taken at the park by another or others, featuring the security arrangements at the entrance gate and outside the building where Iran International were based.
“The unchallenged evidence was that that imagery had been captured on at least two previous occasions and went back in time to the summer of 2022.
“I conclude from that that there was an element of both planning and persistence on the part of those who were behind this, consistent with a planned attack and, moreover, they clearly trusted you to carry out this further reconnaissance.”
The judge jailed Dovtaev for three years and six months with a further licence period of 12 months.
Previously, Iran International spokesman Adam Baillie said its journalists would not be “cowed by threats”.
He said: “This trial was a reminder of the threats journalists and news organisations face. Journalism is under attack across the world from those who seek to suppress media freedom.”
Commenting on the case, Met Commander Dominic Murphy said counter-terrorism police were “very alive” to the threat posed by Iran to potential targets on British soil.
The head of the Met’s SO15 Counter-terrorism Command said: “For a considerable amount of time, we’ve been worried about threats projected into the UK from Iran.
“At this time, we don’t know why Dovtaev was conducting this activity except to say that we believe very strongly that it was for terrorism.
“We don’t know who did it but we have always been concerned about threats projected into the UK, and in this case particularly against Persian language media.
“I’m pleased to say the company are still broadcasting from London but just in a different location now.”
Fifteen plots “generated from Iran” against individuals or organisations in the UK have been disrupted and police are alive to the threat from the hostile state, he said.
Iran International had been highly critical of the Iranian government for years and publicly accused it of human rights violations, jurors were told.
Last September, it reported on the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained for allegedly violating headscarf rules.
Amid the subsequent protests in Iran, the country’s minister of intelligence designated the television channel a “terrorist organisation”.
In November, state-owned Iranian media described Iran International as being on a “terror blacklist”.
It said: “Those operating the TV channel have been declared as ‘wanted’ by the ministry (of intelligence).”
Jurors were told of close political ties between Iran, Russia and Chechnya, where the defendant was born.
Since 2019, Iran has been in a strategic alliance with Russia.
Chechnya was described as a “subject” of the Russian Federation and deployed forces to fight in Ukraine last year, jurors were told.
On February 11, IT worker and married father-of-three Dovtaev boarded a plane from Vienna to Gatwick.
From the airport, he took a taxi directly to the headquarters of Iran International and carried out “hostile reconnaissance” for an unidentified individual or group, the court was told.
He sought to “identify and exploit” vulnerabilities in the security of the company’s premises in the Chiswick Business Park, west London, jurors heard.
When initially questioned, he told security guards he was meeting a friend.
He was arrested by police at a nearby Starbucks after being seen filming the Iran International building on his phone.
In a prepared statement to police, he denied being involved with any terrorist organisation and claimed he shot a video “to show to my three children as there was a lake there”.
The court was told Dovtaev’s trip was the most recent in a series of similar visits by “others unknown” to identify chinks in security that could be exploited by those planning an attack.
Prosecutor Nicholas de la Poer KC said: “As a result of the Iranian authorities’ attitude towards Iran International, the organisation and its employees all became targets for violent reprisals.
“As such, the security at their place of work was of very real and practical interest to those who might wish to carry out such reprisals.
“The very fact that the defendant went to collect information shows that planning by others was already under way.”
Giving evidence, the defendant denied wrongdoing and claimed he had been “set up”.
He claimed not to know why he had been sent to the business park and said he felt tricked by his contact, whose identity he did not know.
Asked why he appeared to take an interest in the building and its surroundings, he said he “quite simply liked it” and was “in wonder at the architecture”.
Dovtaev said he was sent to the UK to do something he “didn’t understand” and he had “no reason” to help the Iranian government to attack its enemies in England.
