A man jailed in the UK for conducting surveillance on Iran International has been released early and deported to Austria, despite being sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for gathering intelligence that could have aided a terrorist attack.
Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev, a 33-year-old Austrian national of Chechen origin, was freed last week after serving around 28 months of his sentence and returned to Austria, where authorities have indicated they will take no further action.
According to records cited by The Sunday Times, Dovtaev told a parole hearing he had been offered €50,000 to carry out reconnaissance on the broadcaster’s London office, describing the task as an opportunity “to make easy money.”
He admitted that the information he gathered could have been used to facilitate a potential terrorist attack, though the police were unable to prove who had tasked him with the operation despite strongly suspecting he was acting on the orders of Iran, according to The Times.
Dovtaev was arrested in February 2023 after filming security arrangements at Iran International’s headquarters at Chiswick Business Park. He was later charged with a single count of attempting to collect information "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism."
During the course of the trial, the police released footage of Dovtaev gathering information around the office building that housed Iran International and recording videos of the area.
Prosecutors said Dovtaev covertly filmed material on his phone in order to "identify vulnerabilities" in the media company's security which could be exploited by others for terrorism.
During a hearing on March 19, 2026, "Dovtaev told the panel that he had been given an opportunity to make ‘easy money’, where he would be paid fifty-thousand euros [£43,347] to go to the [Iran International] building and undertake reconnaissance because two business partners were in dispute.”
“Mr Dovtaev has accepted that it was likely he was being used to gather intelligence on the security situation at the building, with a possible terrorist attack to follow," according to a summary of the hearing reviewed by The Times.
After the hearing, the parole panel concluded he no longer posed a risk to the public, noting his actions were driven by “greed” and “recklessness” rather than ideology.
Threats continue
On February 18, 2023, a week after Dovtaev's arrest, Iran International announced that it decided to temporarily move its studio operations to the United States upon the order of UK anti-terrorism officials.
After months of hiatus in broadcasting from the UK due to terrorist threats by Tehran, the network resumed operations from a new London building on September 25, 2023.
However, an incident earlier this month showed the network remains under threat.
On April 17, 2026, British police charged three people over an attempted arson attack near the London offices of Iran International.
Police said a burning container was thrown towards the broadcaster’s headquarters in north-west London. No one was injured, but the case has added to concerns about the safety of Persian-language media in Britain.
In a separate case on April 18, Iran International received reports that an Iranian man was violently assaulted in central London. The Metropolitan Police are understood to be investigating.
The cases have drawn renewed attention to concerns among British officials over the use of criminal proxies by foreign states, including Iran, to carry out surveillance and attacks while maintaining plausible deniability.
On Thursday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer voiced concern over Tehran’s activities in the United Kingdom, saying he was “very worried” about the increasing use of proxies by foreign states including the Islamic Republic.
He pledged to introduce legislation to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the next parliamentary session. “We go into a new session in a few weeks' time, and we'll bring that legislation forward."
