A jury has been shown the moment a TV presenter was stabbed outside his home by ‘smiling’ and ‘laughing’ criminals allegedly recruited by the Iranian government.
Iran International journalist Pouria Zeraati was stabbed three times in the leg in a broad daylight attack outside his home in Wimbledon, South London.
Woolwich Crown Court was told the attack, which occurred in March 2024, was ‘ordered by a third party acting on behalf of the Iranian state.’
CCTV was shown to the jury of the moment Nandito Badea, 21, and David Andrei, 22, who had both flown in from Romania, allegedly surrounded Zeraati as he was about to get into his Tesla to travel to the studio for his TV show.
Andrei allegedly grabbed Zeraati from behind while Badea drew a knife and stabbed him.
A third man, George Stana, 25, is accused of driving them from the scene in a blue Mazda, which was later found abandoned in New Malden.
Pictures were shown to the jury of a carrier bag in the front passenger footwell containing two tea towels, while there was also a bottle of Dettol surface cleaner in the car.
A nearby bin contained Badea’s distinctive black hooded top with the word ‘gangster’ on the front and a teddy bear cartoon on the back and a green jumper worn by Stana.
CCTV captured the moment Pouria Zeraati was stabbed repeatedly in the leg before running away from his attackers outside his home in Wimbledon, South London, in March 2024
The Iran International journalist told passersby who came to his aid that he had been on the receiving end of threats before
Zeraati was left hospitalised after the stabbing, which was carried out by three men said to be acting as criminal ‘proxies’ for the Iranian regime
All three men caught a taxi to Heathrow before boarding a flight via Geneva and returning to their native Romania.
Two of the men were subsequently extradited, but Andrei remains in Romania because he is facing ‘domestic proceedings,’ the court was told.
The three were said to be motivated by money, but were acting as criminal ‘proxies’ for the Iranian state, the court heard.
Zainab Mussa, who witnessed the attack from the window of her home nearby, said she had seen the men at 1pm, nearly two hours before the attack, standing by her hedge and assumed they were waiting for an Uber.
An hour later they were still there, one of them smoking a cigarette, and at 2.45pm, as she went to the window to draw the blinds, she ‘saw them moving.’
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‘I got curious because they were there for so long. The strange thing was, and why I was watching them, they were definitely rushing and that’s when I saw them go towards the victim.
‘He was coming down the street and they were both by him, one opposite and one on the side but both looked like they had grabbed him. One of them was holding his arm.
‘I couldn’t hear but from the facial expression they did say something and I could clearly see he was shocked. He looked physically upset and then I heard him scream.
‘I had a feeling they stabbed him and that’s when I ran down, without a scarf and no shoes, because that was my natural instinct.’
Eyewitness James Willis said he heard ‘the sound of laughing’ from the two men running off, telling jurors it ‘looked like a couple of guys that had done something and found it funny’.
Meanwhile Jack Upton was walking towards the scene of the attack with friend Michael Row and described how he saw two figures in black tracksuits ‘sprinting quite fast towards us.’
‘When I first saw them they were relaxed, slightly jovial, as if they were laughing among themselves.’
Mr Row reiterated to jurors that ‘one of them was laughing’.
Mr Row added: ‘The car immediately sped off – I’m not even sure one of the doors was closed as the car started moving.’
Speaking about seeing Mr Zeraati, Mr Row said: ‘I could see blood pooling at the bottom of his leg on the floor and him holding his side.’
They made towards a blue Mazda which was waiting in a side street with its engine running and drove off as the pair jumped into it, before the doors were closed, he said.
Further up the street, they found Zeraati: ‘There was blood on his trainers. They were white trainers so it was quite shocking. He said quite loudly several times, ‘I’ve been stabbed, I’ve been stabbed.’
‘He said he had called 999 and he was on the phone. He told us he was a journalist and he’d had threats before so I understood quite quickly it was something serious that was going on.’
The court was told that Zeraati worked for Iran International, a dissident TV station then based in Chiswick, West London.
He had earlier described how Badea had approached him asking for change and he was then allegedly grabbed from behind by Andrei, pinning his arms to his side.
Badea, he claimed, ‘grabbed my shoulder and with the hand he had the knife in, he started stabbing the back of my right thigh, all the time he was looking me in the eye.’
After the men ran off he said: ‘I was in big shock and then I noticed I had been stabbed. I noticed nothing had been stolen, and then it clicked, I realised this was something else, not a robbery.’
He was taken by ambulance to St George’s Hospital where he was treated for three stab wounds to his right thigh.
A courtroom sketch of Badea and Stana, who are accused of carrying out the violent attack
A witness statement taken the day after the alleged attack with Mr Zeraati’s wife, Oldouz Rezvani, revealed that said she received a phone call telling her of the alleged attack.
In the statement, which was read to jurors by the prosecution, Ms Rezvani said: ‘I was crying as the whole thing was such a shock and I was very concerned for my husband.
‘I could see the blood in the street. I went with my husband in the ambulance to hospital.’
The court also heard that the assailants ordered a taxi using the app Bolt, initially setting the drop-off location as Tottenham, then adjusting it to Luton, and finally Heathrow Airport.
Asked about the customers in his vehicle, Bolt taxi driver Syed Hussain told jurors: ‘They said they had some family issues and had to go abroad. They seemed a bit agitated and on edge.’
In 2022, the Iranian regime designated Iran International as a terrorist organisation and decreed anyone working with the organisation would be deemed a threat to Iranian national security.
Then in November 2022, posters were put up in the Iranian capital, Tehran, which featured pictures of a number of journalists including Zeraati, under the heading ‘Wanted: dead or alive’.
Police had to provide armed security for the Iran International offices in Chiswick in 2022 and for a period from February 2023 the TV station moved to Washington DC when they were told their employees could not be adequately protected in the UK.
Badea and Stana deny wounding and wounding causing grievous bodily harm.
The case continues.
