Teenage boy dies in custody after beating by Iran's Basij forces, source says

Jurors at Woolwich Crown Court were taken through photographs, messages and phone records documenting communications among the three defendants and between Mostafa Sepahvand and two men in Iran.

Sepahvand, 41, Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 57, have all pleaded not guilty to charges under Britain’s National Security Act 2023.

Prosecutors say they gathered information for Iranian intelligence to prepare for serious violence against at least one target, with Sepahvand expected to carry out an attack and the others helping to plan it.

Locations and social media

In an exchange on December 19, 2024, Sepahvand received a postcode from a UK mobile number and forwarded it to Javadi Manesh, the court heard.

The prosecutor told jurors the postcode identified the location of Volant Media, Iran International’s parent company. Sepahvand also forwarded the telephone number from which he had received it.

Messages from December 24 showed Sepahvand sending Javadi Manesh a photograph of Hosseini, a link to his Instagram account and information about Iran International’s website.

In one message, Sepahvand wrote: “go to insta and you will see both the dog and the car”.

The prosecution also reminded jurors of a video Noori had sent to Sepahvand showing a park where Hosseini walked his dog, Niko. Other messages referred to the dog’s name and a blue Volkswagen.

Jurors were shown photographs recovered from Noori’s phone depicting Malthouse Court in Brentford from several angles, taken from inside a car.

Prosecutors had previously told the court that Iran International journalist Mojtaba Pourmohsen lived there between 2019 and 2023, but the defendants appeared unaware he had moved.

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Money and contacts in Iran

The prosecution examined records of Sepahvand’s communications with Mostafa Ghorbani and another contact saved as “Amin Mostafa’s Friend”, both in Iran.

The exchanges included discussions about transferring money to Sepahvand and references to an account in his name at the Workers Welfare Bank.

Jurors also heard messages concerning Sepahvand’s court case in Iran. In one, Ghorbani wrote: “haji says your case will be fine”.

Sepahvand sent Ghorbani two Iranian court documents concerning vehicles linked to him. The documents included instructions to impound the vehicles and arrest Sepahvand if he was found driving them.

Shortly after sending the documents, Sepahvand called Ghorbani and the two spoke for nearly a minute and a half, according to the records presented to the jury.

In later exchanges, Sepahvand complained that nothing had happened with his case. The logs showed repeated attempts to reach Ghorbani, including unanswered calls in early January.

Prosecutors previously said Sepahvand wanted help resolving an Iranian criminal conviction, which they consider relevant to his motivation. Jurors were told not to treat the conviction itself as evidence against him.

A police witness was questioned about the dates, times and durations of calls and messages recorded in the logs, rather than asked to draw conclusions about their significance.

Defendants dispute prosecution’s account

According to the prosecution’s account of his defense, Sepahvand accepts conducting surveillance for Iran but says he feared the consequences of refusing and deliberately did a poor job. Prosecutors reject that account.

Javadi Manesh and Noori accept visiting locations and taking photographs and videos but say they did not know they were assisting Iranian intelligence, according to the prosecution.

Nabian, whose legal name is Erfan Hajbonian Dehaghani, is a 26-year-old protester from Isfahan who was sentenced to death after being detained following Iran’s nationwide protests in January.

Speaking to Iran International from an undisclosed location, Nabian described torture, a coerced confession, a mock execution and imprisonment alongside protesters who were later executed.

Minutes after being told to write his will, blindfolded, he was led into another room and ordered to stand on a stool.

Then a noose was placed around his neck.

“All the memories of my life were coming before my eyes,” Nabian recalled. “I thought I would never see my family again.”

Even with the rope around his neck, Nabian said interrogators continued questioning him about the protests, his phone password and allegations linked to the Alikhani Square case, a mass prosecution stemming from deadly clashes during the January 8 protests in Isfahan, which he denied.

The noose remained around his neck for between five and 10 minutes, he said.

A confession under duress

Nabian said he was then placed in front of a camera and ordered to say he had not been beaten or physically harmed.

If he looked away or failed to give the answers his interrogators wanted, he said, they stopped the recording, beat him and started again.

After the filming, Nabian said a man told him: “You’re going to be executed. The sentence has been issued.”

Nabian asked to call his family. Permission was refused.

Minutes later, shackled to a bench, he asked again.

“Please, can you tell them to let me speak to my family? I want to hear my family’s voices for the last time.”

Only then, he said, was he told he would not be executed at that moment and would instead be transferred to prison.

From Alikhani Square to detention

Nabian said he had also joined Iran’s 2019 and 2022 protests.

On January 8, 2026, he joined demonstrations in Isfahan. At Alikhani Square, he said security forces were firing live ammunition at protesters. Four or five pellets struck his right leg.

Fearing arrest if he sought treatment at a hospital, Nabian made his way home. With no knowledge of how to remove the pellets, he cleaned and bandaged the wound himself as his leg began bleeding heavily.

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He said he later went back outside to look for a young girl who had become separated from her mother and found the child dead.

Despite what he had seen, Nabian returned to the streets the following day.

“We couldn’t turn a blind eye,” he said, referring to the violence he had seen on January 8 as protesters were shot at.

The events at Alikhani Square later became the basis for one of the most consequential capital cases to emerge from the January protests. Fifty-nine people were initially arrested and 12 were sentenced to death, according to a lawyer who spoke to Iran International.

UN experts led by Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, said the defendants were tried in a single closed hearing that violated fair-trial standards and raised concerns over the use of televised confessions.

Amnesty International separately described the proceedings as a “grossly unfair mass trial” and documented torture, forced confessions and denial of access to lawyers among defendants.

‘The Alef-Ta slaughterhouse’

Nabian said he was arrested on March 6 and taken to Ghaemieh police station.

There, he said, officers demanded the password to his phone and gave him an unidentified substance intravenously.

He was then transferred to a detention facility he identified as Alef-Ta in Isfahan.

Nabian described it as a roughly 10-story building used for solitary confinement and torture.

“I call it the Alef-Ta slaughterhouse,” he said.

He described being stripped, soaked with water and beaten with hoses and batons. At one point, he said, his arms were secured above him while he was beaten for around an hour.

Star of David tattoos and accusations of spying for Israel

Nabian said his tattoos became a particular focus for his interrogators.

They included Hebrew writing, a Star of David on the right side of his neck and ancient Iranian symbols, including the Derafsh Kaviani, on his arm.

He said interrogators repeatedly struck areas bearing the tattoos, including the Hebrew writing on his back.

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“One of them kept saying, ‘I’ll beat you so much you’ll start speaking Hebrew,’” Nabian recalled.

He said interrogators accused him of being an Israeli spy, receiving money from Israel and undergoing training.

Nabian denied the allegations.

Dastgerd and the sentence

On March 20, Nabian was transferred to Dastgerd prison in Isfahan.

He said intake staff initially refused to admit him because of his injuries, including a broken finger and damaged knees.

His death sentence was later commuted to 11 years in prison, according to a court verdict reviewed by Iran International.

Nabian said the sentence included one year for propaganda and 10 years over alleged psilocybin possession. He denied the drug allegation and said authorities gave differing accounts of the amount.

Iranian authorities have previously faced allegations of bringing fabricated drug charges against political detainees.

Norway-based rights group Iran Human Rights has described the case of Iranian-Dutch protester Zahra Bahrami, arrested after the 2009 demonstrations and executed in 2011, as a fabricated drug case in which she was tortured into confessing.

The US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, then known as the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, said at the time that Iranian security agencies had in several cases planted drugs and added drug-related charges to the cases of political prisoners.

The cellmates later executed in connection with the Alikhani case

Inside Dastgerd, Nabian lived alongside other defendants tied to the Alikhani case.

Among them were Sasan Azadvar and Erfan Esfandiari, both later executed.

Nabian also spent around two days with Abolfazl Sepahi, another Alikhani defendant.

He said Sepahi told him he had been shot from behind with live ammunition in the pelvis during the January 8 protests and described torture he endured in detention, including having a butane torch held near his eye.

Sepahi was later publicly executed alongside Amirhossein Safari in Ali-Khani Square.

He also remembered Shervin Bagherian, another Ali-Khani defendant whom he befriended in Dastgerd, as intelligent and good-natured. Bagherian often came to his room, where he played chess and spent time with fellow prisoners.

It was only after his release that Nabian saw Bagherian’s forced confession, broadcast on state television. “My heart broke,” he said. “I kept thinking about what this kid must have gone through.”

Amnesty International said Bagherian had been forcibly disappeared for 21 days, subjected to torture and denied access to a lawyer before his forced confession was broadcast on state television on January 25.

For Nabian, the names appearing in reports of executions were not strangers. They were men he had lived beside, spoken with and come to know in prison — before watching, from outside, as one after another was taken to the gallows.

Air strike and crackdown inside Dastgerd

Nabian was still inside Dastgerd when an air strike on March 31 hit military facilities immediately behind the prison.

Iran International later reported that a military base and ammunition depot behind Dastgerd were hit by three missiles and parts of the prison were damaged. A judicial document said some prisoners were killed and others died in the ensuing fire.

Nabian said the blasts cut electricity, water and telephone access and were strong enough to throw prisoners from upper bunks.

“Everyone was shouting, ‘Come save us. Open the doors so we can get out.’”

He said some staff left while inmates remained behind locked ward doors. Some doors were later damaged or opened as prisoners tried to reach safety.

Nabian said security forces and IRGC personnel subsequently entered the prison and opened fire.

His ward remained locked. He said other prisoners later told him they had seen bodies and black body bags in corridors.

The following day, Nabian said, he could hear prisoners being beaten and tortured. He also described a “tunnel of terror,” in which prisoners accused of involvement in the unrest were forced between lines of guards who struck them with gun stocks, batons and hoses.

A judicial document later obtained by Iran International listed 75 prisoners as defendants over the unrest and fire. At least 26 were ordered to stand trial, while 18 faced charges that could carry the death penalty.

Nabian was released on bail on April 7. He said he left Iran because he feared rearrest, further torture, a lengthy prison term or another death sentence.

“I really love my country,” he said. “I always believed Iran would be free.”

“I never thought my place would be outside Iran.”

Amnesty cites leaked orders, official statements, appointment records and documents showing internal reporting and coordination.

Among the evidence is an order issued by Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces on September 21, 2022, which moved through the police’s national command system to county-level forces and was entered into local police records.

Amnesty’s investigation identifies 87 officials whose alleged roles warrant criminal investigation.

It examines how security councils developed policy, ministers transmitted binding instructions, commanders deployed forces and government bodies funded prolonged operations.

Security councils set policy

At the national level, the Supreme National Security Council sets Iran’s defence and security strategies, including its response to protests. The president chairs the council, whose membership includes senior political, military and intelligence officials.

The State Security Council, headed by the interior minister, coordinates domestic security policy. Provincial and county security councils, chaired by governors, monitor local conditions, report upward and coordinate the responsibilities of security bodies.

During the 2022 uprising, these structures connected national decisions to operations in individual provinces and counties, Amnesty found.

The interior minister at the time, Ahmad Vahidi, held overlapping positions that gave him authority across the system. Alongside leading the ministry and State Security Council, he served as the supreme leader’s deputy commander-in-chief for police affairs, placing him above the police’s general commander in its command structure.

State Security Council resolutions became binding orders when communicated for implementation by the interior minister.

Amnesty examined leaked resolutions dated September 18 and 26, 2022, accompanied by cover letters signed by then deputy interior minister Majid Mir Ahmadi. Those letters transmitted instructions to senior officials and required implementation and reporting.

Police and IRGC units carried out operations

The police, known by the Persian acronym FARAJA, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were the principal security bodies involved in lethal protest dispersals.

Within FARAJA, the Prevention Police oversaw police stations and provided the initial response to protests. Its Assistance Cohorts supplied additional personnel when stations needed support.

The Special Cohorts, commanded nationally in 2022 by Hassan Karami, were deployed when protests exceeded the capacity of those forces to disperse them.

The IRGC operated through provincial corps overseen by regional headquarters. Their subordinate forces included operational divisions, Security Cohorts and county-level Basij structures.

Amnesty found that Basij’s recruitment, training, mobilization and remuneration were governed through the IRGC, placing them within its institutional structure.

Specific order

Amnesty obtained and verified a September 21 instruction from the General Staff that called for a “firm and severe” response. Two days later, the police commander in Mazandaran province instructed forces to “respond mercilessly and go as far as causing death.”

Other orders went into operational detail, specifying the forces to deploy, their locations and the weapons and ammunition to use.

A leaked letter from Vahidi to then president Ebrahim Raisi, dated January 8, 2023, recorded a State Security Council decision the previous October to allocate nine trillion rials to the Interior Ministry for security costs.

Amnesty put that sum at approximately $22 million at the market exchange rate at the time. The letter also described costs associated with transporting, feeding and accommodating thousands of deployed personnel.

Responsibility beyond those who fired

Amnesty assessed commanders under the principle of superior responsibility, examining their control over subordinates, knowledge of crimes and failure to prevent or punish them.

For Interior Ministry officials, it focused on aiding and abetting, reflecting their alleged role in coordinating and facilitating operations.

The organization said commanders continued to praise security forces and order further repression despite mounting evidence of crimes.

It listed 10 national officials and 77 regional, provincial and county officials associated with its detailed investigations in western Iran, pointing out that the list was not exhaustive and that individual criminal responsibility must be established through independent investigations and fair prosecutions.

The organization said no responses had been received to letters seeking comments from Iran’s leadership and senior officials before publication.

Among those facing execution are 113 people arrested in connection with the January protests, as well as 13 women and at least seven people who were under 18 at the time of the alleged offenses.

At least 70 people were executed from January 7 to October 5. Human rights organizations and activists say the figures are minimum totals, covering only cases that have been reported and verified.

Of the 70 people executed, 35 were put to death in cases connected to the January protests, nine in cases linked to the 12-day and 40-day wars, and 26 in other political and security cases.

The executions include people arrested in recent months as well as prisoners whose cases date back years, including to the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising and others who had spent close to nine years in prison.

January-related executions

Iran Human Rights had documented 32 executions linked to the January protests by Oct. 3. The subsequent executions of Alireza Raisi and Alireza Sepahi in Isfahan, together with that of Arvin Kheirkhah in Shahroud, bring the number identified in Iran International’s review to 35.

Iran Human Rights says defendants have been sentenced following proceedings marred by allegations of torture, forced confessions and denial of fair-trial rights.

Another nine people executed during the period had cases linked to the two recent wars.

The remaining 26 were executed in other political and security cases involving alleged links to opposition groups, earlier protests or espionage accusations.

Thirteen were accused of working with or belonging to opposition groups: nine of links to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, two to the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and four of membership in Jaish al-Adl or Ansar al-Furqan.

Their cases predated the January protests and the two recent wars.

Seven others were executed on espionage charges. Six had been detained before the 12-day war: four were accused of spying for Israel, with one also accused of working with the United States, and two of spying for an unnamed Arab country. The seventh had also been detained before the two recent wars.

The remaining four included two protesters from the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising and two people accused of membership in ISIS.

The cases of the two alleged ISIS members dated to clashes in the Bamo mountains in 2017. They were executed after nearly nine years in detention and prison.

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On death row

At least 194 people in political and security cases are currently under death sentences, according to the human rights reports reviewed by Iran International.

Of those, 113 are linked to the January protests, 10 to the two recent wars and 71 to other political and security cases. Their judicial status varies, including initial death sentences, sentences upheld on appeal and cases undergoing further review.

Among the 71 prisoners whose cases are unrelated to the January protests or the wars are 19 detained over earlier protests: 17 linked to the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising and two to the November 2019 protests.

Another 44 have political and security cases dating from before the recent wars and January protests.

They range from political, civil and humanitarian activity to alleged links with the People’s Mojahedin, Kurdish, Baluch and Arab groups and espionage accusations. One prisoner has been sentenced to death for “insulting the Prophet.”

Two other cases began with resistance to the seizure of agricultural land in November 2025 and resulted in death sentences for “corruption on Earth.”

Three prisoners are accused of killing a member of the Basij, while two others face sentences in older political cases.

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Women and juveniles

All 70 people executed in the period were men, but 13 women are among the 194 currently under death sentences. Seven have cases linked to the January protests, two to the wars and four to other political and security cases.

At least seven of those facing execution were under 18 when the alleged offenses took place. Five are defendants in cases stemming from the January protests, one is linked to the 2022 uprising and one to an older case.

Amnesty International has warned about the risk of execution facing five of the juvenile defendants.

Another case documented by HRANA involved a detainee who was 17 years and nine months old in June 2026, meaning he was under 18 during the January protests.

Available information is insufficient to establish how many of those already executed, if any, were under 18 at the time of the alleged offenses.

An age range could be determined for 53 of the 70 people executed and 116 of the 194 facing execution. Of those, 29 executed prisoners and 68 facing death sentences were younger than 30.

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Ethnicity and nationality

Ethnicity is not routinely recorded in judicial or human rights reports, making it impossible to establish the background of most people in the dataset.

Where sources explicitly identified ethnicity, at least 18 of those executed and 51 of those facing execution belonged to ethnic minority groups.

The ethnicity of 48 executed prisoners and 143 facing death sentences could not be determined.

Those executed also included three Afghan nationals, two Iraqi nationals and one Iranian-Swedish citizen. The two Arabs among the foreign nationals were Iraqi citizens.

Among those facing execution are three Afghan nationals, one Turkish national and one Iranian-Swedish citizen. The Turkish national is Kurdish and is also included in the ethnic breakdown.

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Hotspots: Karaj and Isfahan

Of the 70 executions, 32 were carried out in Karaj and 12 in Isfahan. Five each took place in Mashhad and Urmia, three each in Qom and Shahroud, and two each in Zahedan, Naqadeh and Kermanshah. Hamedan and Shahrekord recorded one each, while the location of two could not be established.

That means 44 of the 70 executions, or nearly two-thirds, were carried out in Karaj and Isfahan. The figures refer to where sentences were carried out, not the prisoners’ home provinces or places of birth.

At least 32 executions were reported at Qezel Hesar Prison, 12 at Isfahan Central Prison, seven at Urmia Central Prison and five at Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad.

The last reported place of detention could be established for 186 of the 194 people facing execution.

Isfahan accounts for the largest group: 45 were last reported at Isfahan Central Prison, two at Dowlatabad Women’s Prison and one at a juvenile detention center.

Another 32 were held at Qezel Hesar, 14 at Zahedan Central Prison and 12 at Vakilabad. Evin, Adelabad Prison in Shiraz and Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz each held 10.

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Allegations of torture

The executions and death sentences come amid repeated warnings from human rights organizations about the handling of the cases.

Iran Human Rights has reported allegations of torture to obtain confessions, violations of fair-trial rights and pressure on prisoners’ families not to speak publicly about their cases.

Human rights groups say restrictions on access to information, a lack of judicial transparency and pressure on families make it difficult to establish the full number of people executed or facing execution.

The 70 executions and 194 death sentences documented in the review therefore represent cases that could be identified and verified, rather than an estimate of the full scale.

Iran International journalists Mojtaba Pourmohsen and Kambiz Hosseini were among the targets of the alleged surveillance operation, prosecutors told Woolwich Crown Court.

“Together, the defendants were engaged in what is very obviously a form of spying,” prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC told jurors.

Mostafa Sepahvand, 41, Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 57, are accused of conducting months of surveillance and reconnaissance, including photographing and filming locations connected to their targets.

All three are charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service under Britain’s National Security Act 2023. Prosecutors say the foreign intelligence service was Iranian.

Sepahvand is also accused of conducting surveillance, reconnaissance and open-source research intending to carry out serious violence against a person in Britain. Javadi Manesh and Noori are accused of conducting surveillance and reconnaissance intending that serious violence would be carried out by someone else.

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“It is the prosecution case that their ultimate objective was that one or more of their targets would be subjected to serious violence,” Jones told the jury.

The prosecution says Sepahvand was intended to carry out the violence himself, with Javadi Manesh and Noori gathering information to assist the planning of an attack.

The three men were arrested in May 2025 and are the first Iranian nationals charged under the National Security Act, which came into force in 2023.

Phones reveal surveillance operation

Prosecutors presented on Tuesday an outline of the evidence regarding the surveillance of Pourmohsen and Hosseini.

“These three defendants were carrying out surveillance and reconnaissance to locate and target at least two journalists associated with news agency Iran International,” Jones said.

The surveillance was intended to establish where targets lived and worked, their routines, the people they spent time with and the layouts of buildings connected to them, according to the prosecution.

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Material recovered from Sepahvand’s phone included searches seeking Pourmohsen’s address. One search asked ChatGPT for “Mojtaba Pour Mohsen’s address,” according to evidence presented in court.

ChatGPT did not provide a home address but returned information about his career and social media contacts and suggested contacting him through Iran International, jurors were told.

Investigators also recovered from Sepahvand’s phone what prosecutors described as a briefing document or “targeting package” containing Pourmohsen’s photograph and information about locations associated with him.

The material included the address of Volant Media, Iran International’s parent company, and information about the Clayton Hotel on Chiswick High Road.

Pourmohsen had stayed at the hotel around Christmas 2024 after developing security concerns about his home address, Jones told jurors.

Prosecutors also presented photographs and videos of Malthouse Court, where Pourmohsen had lived between 2019 and 2023.

The defendants appeared not to know that Pourmohsen had already moved away, according to the prosecution.

Location data and videos

Cell-site data placed Sepahvand and Javadi Manesh in the Malthouse Court area on December 10, 2024, prosecutors said.

Data from a SIM card installed in Sepahvand’s Mercedes A200 also placed the vehicle in the area, according to evidence presented to the jury.

Javadi Manesh later sent Sepahvand photographs and videos of Malthouse Court that prosecutors say were recorded during the visit.

One video played to jurors began with a view of the river before moving toward the block of flats and zooming in.

Location data also placed Sepahvand and Noori in the Malthouse Court area on December 16, prosecutors said.

The prosecution had begun addressing the surveillance of Hosseini by the latest court update.

Sepahvand says he acted under pressure

The defendants contest crucial elements of the prosecution case in different ways.

Sepahvand accepts carrying out surveillance and reconnaissance and that he was doing so for the benefit of Iran, according to the prosecution’s account of his defence.

His position is that he did not want to carry out the activity and acted because he feared the consequences of refusing. Sepahvand also maintains that he deliberately did a poor job so the Iranian intelligence service would not receive the assistance it wanted, Jones told jurors.

The prosecution disputes that account.

“We suggest you will find nothing in any of these messages that is, or looks or even feels like, a threat to Sepahvand,” Jones said.

Javadi Manesh and Noori accept visiting relevant locations and taking photographs and videos but maintain that they did not know they were doing so to assist Iranian intelligence services, according to the prosecution’s description of their cases.

Jurors will have to consider whether they knew what the activity was intended to achieve or whether the circumstances meant they reasonably ought to have known, Jones said.

Messages presented to jury

The prosecution also took jurors through communications recovered from Sepahvand’s phone involving two Iranian telephone numbers.

One belonged to a man identified as Mostafa Ghorbani. Another was saved in Sepahvand’s phone as “Amin Mostafa’s friend.”

Both contacts appeared repeatedly in Sepahvand’s phone activity, prosecutors said.

In a December 8 exchange with Ghorbani presented in court, Sepahvand discussed information he had been sent about a person and location.

“It’s a tourist area, look. They got these [from] Iran, someone said he/she/it is here. They also sent me these few pictures from the Internet. I said ‘okay, I’ll go’, if he/she/it wasn’t there it’s their own problem,” Sepahvand wrote in a translated message read to the jury.

The following day, Sepahvand discussed plans to visit a location with the contact saved as Amin, according to the prosecution.

“I’ll definitely go tomorrow,” Sepahvand wrote.

Prosecutors say “tomorrow” referred to December 10, when location data subsequently placed Sepahvand and Manesh near Malthouse Court.

Amin responded with messages including “God willing you’ll see him/her/it” and “it’ll be sorted,” according to translations presented in court.

The prosecution argues the exchanges undermine Sepahvand’s position that he carried out the work because he had been threatened.

Jones also told jurors that some communications referred to Sepahvand being paid for his work.

Prosecutors say Sepahvand also wanted help resolving a criminal conviction in Iran. The jury was told that the conviction itself was not evidence against him and should not be held against him, but prosecutors consider his efforts to resolve it relevant to his motivation.

Another target

The surveillance outlined by prosecutors extended beyond Iran International.

Material exchanged between Sepahvand and Javadi Manesh included information about Jonathan Turner, a founder of UK Lawyers for Israel, the court heard.

Two aerial images sent by Sepahvand to Javadi Manesh in August 2024 showed addresses connected to UK Lawyers for Israel and Turner’s barristers’ chambers, prosecutors said.

The prosecution says the material relates to another person who had attracted the attention of Iranian intelligence services for reasons different from the journalists.

The majority of the evidence on which prosecutors will rely comes from material obtained from the defendants’ mobile phones following their arrests, Jones told jurors.

The indictment accuses Sepahvand, Javadi Manesh and Noori of engaging between August 14, 2024 and February 16, 2025 in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service carrying out UK-related activities, knowing or reasonably being expected to know that their conduct was likely to provide material assistance.

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The case is being heard by Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb and is expected to last six to eight weeks, with the prosecution expected to spend about two weeks presenting its case.

The prosecution’s opening has begun laying out the digital trail at the center of its case, including searches for a journalist’s address, photographs and videos of locations connected to him, location records and messages discussing visits to those locations.

The jury will ultimately decide what the three men knew about the purpose of the surveillance and whether prosecutors prove it was intended to assist Iranian intelligence services and prepare for serious violence against journalists in Britain.