Iranian journalist stabbed in Wimbledon on orders of Tehran claims police failed to act on earlier threat - after one of his attackers was arrested a year before

Published: 09:35, 6 June 2026 | Updated: 09:35, 6 June 2026 An Iranian journalist who was stabbed in London on orders of the Tehran regime has called out the police on a failure to act on threats he reported in the two years leading up to the daytime attack.  Pouria Zeraati was stabbed three times by proxies of the Iranian regime and left bleeding in the street outside his home in Wimbledon, south-west London, on March 29, 2024. On Friday jurors at Woolwich Crown Court found Romanian nationals Nandito Badea, 21, and George Stana, 25, both guilty of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.  Mr Zeraati, 38, was attacked as he walked to his car and was repeatedly stabbed by Badea in the leg, as Stana waited in a blue Mazda getaway car.  The trial heard Badea, a former professional footballer, approached and asked Zeraati if he had any change as another man David Andrei, 22, grabbed the presenter from behind, pinning his arms to his side.  Badea, who was wearing a hooded top with the word 'gangster' on the front, drew a knife and stabbed him before both men, who had been taking drugs, ran off laughing. They jumped into the blue Mazda 3TS hatchback, driven by Stana, who was waiting in a side road with the engine running and sped from the scene with the doors still open. The men drove to Cavendish Avenue in New Malden where they abandoned the car, dumped their clothing in a nearby bin and used the Bolt app to call a taxi, heading for Heathrow Airport. 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 Mr Zeraati has called out the police on a failure to act on threats he raised in the two-year lead-up to the daytime attack Zeraati was hospitalised after the stabbing, which was carried out by three men said to be acting as criminal 'proxies' for the Iranian regime By the evening, they were taking off on a British Airways flight to Geneva from where they returned to Bucharest.  The men are members of the team that were flown in from Romania and spent a month running surveillance operations before the 'planned attack', described by prosecutors as being 'ordered by a third party acting on behalf of the Iranian state'. Mr Zeraati, who is a recognised face of Iran International, a competitor of the state broadcaster, revealed since 2022 he and his wife were receiving threats and noticed men behaving suspiciously outside their home.  It transpired around a year before the attack the anchor's wife captured Stana waiting outside her house, which was reported to and dismissed by the Metropolitan Police.  Mr Zeraati has now said he was 'shocked' by the Met's handling of the 2023 incident, adding it was 'not something that [he] expected'. Scotland Yard later found it had likely been the first example of 'hostile reconnaissance' carried out by Stana, with the failure at the time to recognise it as evidence the anchor was being targeted.  Mr Zeraati, who featured on 'wanted' posters in Iran, described the Met's oversight of the March 2023 incident as 'the most shocking part of the trial' for him.  He told ITV: 'It happened exactly a year and four weeks before the actual attack happened in 2024, March 29. George Stana and Nandito Badea were recruited, and flown in from Romania, to carry out the attack 'There are two people in our area, on our road, trying to go around different places doing surveillance. They entered our block as well. 'Because we had a balcony and a window towards the communal garden on the ground floor – so we had a view of the driveway, whoever is entering the driveway and we had a view of who is exiting the gate.'  Chief Superintendent Kris Wright, of counter terrorism policing London, said the Zeraati couple's concern was treated at the time as a 'suspicious incident in a communal area'.  He told ITV: 'Local policing provided an excellent response to it, and it's only with the investigation into the stabbing that we were able to look backwards, and realise in context that it was hostile reconnaissance…' Badea wielded the knife while Andrei, who is still in Romania and was not on trial, was also part of the attack, according to the victim.  Speaking of the attack, Mr Zeraati said: 'I think I will never forget this moment in my whole life, not only because of what happened to me – that they stabbed me in the leg – [but] because in those two, three seconds while it happened, all I was thinking was, where is he going to stab? 'Is he going to stab my neck? My heart? My kidney? Will I be alive in the next few seconds or not? This is a moment that you don't want to experience in your life.' Badea claimed Andrei told him to approach Mr Zeraati and ask for money but he then came up from behind and stabbed the journalist.  The former midfielder, who played for Romanian teams Astra and Blejoi, relocated to England to do construction work after his professional football career ended.  Badea said the building work in England he was promised never materialised, but he told jurors he had 'never done any violence in my life' and 'I did not know that someone was going to be hurt or a robbery would take place'. Mr Zeraati had appeared, along with other journalists, on 'Wanted: dead or alive' posters that were put up in the Iranian capital Tehran.  Badea,a former midfielder, had previously been a footballer for a couple of Romanian clubs. He relocated to England to do construction work after his professional football career ended A courtroom sketch of Badea and Stana, who have been convicted of carrying out the violent attack Iran International where the anchor worked, was designated by the Tehran regime as a terrorist organisation and branded 'a network of spies'.  Badea said he had 'no idea' Mr Zeraati was a campaigning journalist. During his evidence, Stana said 'it was a big surprise' when two men he drove from the scene said there had been a stabbing. The plan was to approach this man, slap him a few times to tell him to stop sleeping with someone's wife and take his watch, according to the former decorator. Stana and Badea, who had denied charges, are to be sentenced at the Old Bailey on July 3. Andrei could not be extradited because he was subject to domestic proceedings in Romania.  The Metropolitan Police have been contacted for comment.   No comments have so far been submitted. 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