During a statement to Parliament regarding threats to journalists in Britain, Security Minister Tom Tugendhat confirmed that the Iranian government had spied on Jews in the UK and planned to
kill them. The information collected between 2020 and 2022 was believed to have been in preparation for future lethal operations. This follows the revelation by the JC last week that the Iranian regime had mapped the Jewish diaspora to identify high-profile figures for an assassination campaign.
Catherine Perez-Shakdam, a Jewish woman who had met Ayatollah Khamenei, revealed that plans were in place to target prominent NGOs run by Jews, their influence, and where they lived with their families. The aim was to figure out who was doing what in each business sector and identify important rabbis.
Tugendhat noted that the Iranian regime's spying and targeting of Jews was not carried out by rogue elements, but rather a conscious strategy of the regime. He also highlighted that Iranian intelligence services work with organized criminal gangs and vowed to go after anyone working with them.
Earlier in the day, Foreign Office officials summoned Iran's most senior diplomat in the UK to express the British government's intolerance of threats to the media. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also denounced the Iranian regime's continuing threats to the lives of UK-based journalists and summoned its representative to make clear this would not be tolerated.
Tugendhat condemned the Iranian regime's actions, stating that they had murdered their own people and made hostages of others. He also mentioned that the Iranian regime had publicly called for the capture or killing of those holding them to account, including specific threats to UK-based journalists working for Iran International and their families. The Home Secretary and Tugendhat both condemned this outrageous violation of UK sovereignty. Photo by Sonia Sevilla, Wikimedia commons.
