Iran International journalist Pouria Zeraati was stabbed three times in the leg in an attack outside his home in Wimbledon, south London, on 29 March 2024.
Romanian nationals Nandito Badea, 21, and George Stana, 25, were sentenced on Friday after being found guilty of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm at Woolwich Crown Court in June.
Badea was given an eight-year jail term, and Stana was sentenced to 12 years.
The men were members of a team that flew in from Romania and spent a month surveilling Mr Zeraati’s block of flats on Queensmere Road.
The target of the plot, Mr Zeraati, was a high-profile presenter for Iran International, a dissident TV station based in Chiswick, west London, until February 2023.
Threats made against the network, its employees and their families led to it relocating temporarily to Washington DC.
Mr Zeraati had appeared, along with other journalists, on “Wanted: dead or alive” posters that were put up in the Iranian capital Tehran.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC told the court that Badea and Stana were motivated by money but were acting as criminal “proxies” for the Iranian government.
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