By SCM Media Reporter
OLD BAILEY – TWO ROMANIAN thugs hired as “proxies” by the hostile Iranian regime to brutally stab a dissident British journalist outside his London home have been jailed for a combined 20 years.
George Stana, 25, and Nandito Badea, 21, were put behind bars today at the Old Bailey following a massive, globe-trotting counter-terrorism investigation.
The court heard how the shadowy duo carried out a calculated, state-sponsored hit on an Iran International news presenter on behalf of Tehran.
The victim—whose channel has been branded a “terrorist organisation” by Iran’s tyrannical rulers—was ambushed on March 29, 2024, as he walked to his car in Queensmere Road, Wimbledon.
After one of the thugs distraction-asked for change, the presenter was pinned down and knifed multiple times in the leg before the attackers fled.
But Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism command launched a relentless manhunt that blew wide open a terrifying web of foreign espionage operating right on British soil.
The judge ruled that Stana was fully aware—or ought to have known—that he was working for a hostile foreign power. He was slapped with a 12-year sentence under the strict National Security Act.
His younger accomplice, Badea, who directly carried out the knifing but was deemed a “blind” mercenary unaware of the Iranian connection, was handed eight years.
A third suspected accomplice, David Andrei, remains stuck in Romania facing separate charges.
The court heard how the gang plotted the hit for months. Stana had even been spotted prowling around the journalist’s address a whole year prior in March 2023, pretending to be a suspicious loiterer when confronted by neighbours.
After the bloodbath in Wimbledon, the trio dumped their DNA-stained clothes in a New Malden wheelie bin and booked a getaway taxi straight to Heathrow, fleeing to Geneva before the dust had even settled.
But they couldn’t run forever. Sleuths from Counter Terrorism Policing London tracked them down using mobile phone data, CCTV, and a blue Mazda they bought off Facebook.
By December 2024, British cops teamed up with Romanian authorities to snatch the fugitives from their home country and drag them back to the UK to face justice.
Speaking after the sentencing, Chief Superintendent Kris Wright, head of Protective Security Operations for Counter Terrorism Policing London, issued a chilling warning to other foreign agents.
“Our recent casework shows an increasing use of so-called ‘proxies’ by hostile foreign states to conduct illegal activity and attacks in the UK.
“Our message to anyone being asked to carry out activity by foreign states or even unknown entities online is to think again, because you will be caught and you will face justice.”