LONDON — Two Romanian men have been charged in London over the 2024 stabbing of British-Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati, an attack prosecutors said was planned and ordered by a third party acting on behalf of the Iranian state. Nandito Badea, 21, and George Stana, 25, face charges of wounding with intent and unlawful wounding, both of which they deny.

Zeraati, a British journalist of Iranian origin, was working for Iran International, a Farsi-language dissident broadcaster, when he was stabbed in the leg outside his west London home in 2024. David Andrei, a third man involved in the attack, was arrested in Romania on accusations of involvement and is not part of the current trial.

On the day of the attack, Badea and Andrei confronted Zeraati as he crossed the street between his home and his car. Andrei held the journalist while Badea stabbed him three times in the leg, before the pair fled to a nearby car where a driver was waiting. The vehicle and the clothing used in the attack were dumped, and the accused then left in a taxi to Heathrow.

Stana had been arrested by police outside Zeraati's address a year before the stabbing. At the time of that arrest, he was in the property's communal garden with another man and was found in possession of gloves and scissors while wearing a blue medical mask.

The court was shown an image of posters put up in Tehran in 2022 that featured journalists including Zeraati with the words "wanted: dead or alive" on them. The Iranian chargé d'affaires in the United Kingdom has denied any link between Tehran and the attack.

Since 2005, Iran has increasingly used proxies such as criminal gangs to carry out attacks in the U.K. on persons who have become targets of Iranian intimidation. Iran International was previously based in Chiswick before relocating to the United States after threats from Tehran and concerns about its journalists' safety.