(ITV) Iranian spies offered a people-smuggler $200,000 (around £158,290) to assassinate two news presenters codenamed “the bride and the groom” outside their London studio, to show critics of the regime they “could do harm to them at any time.”
The organisers can be named, and their plans laid bare, thanks to an ITV News investigation, which obtained video recordings and text messages exchanged as part of the plot.
Last autumn, the spies made plans to strike the studios of Persian-language news channel Iran International, based in a business park in West London, with a car bomb.
But over the course of a month, as their ambitions and anxieties grew, their plans had to change, and instead orders were sent to “simply stab [the presenters] using a kitchen knife.”
(Date based on original publication date)
