Chiswick Business Park Terror Scout Found Guilty

Austrian national visited office development to help plan attack

Dovtaev being arrested in the Starbucks in Chiswick Busines Park. Picture: Met Police

December 21, 2023

A 31-year-old Austrian national has been found guilty of attempting to collect information for terrorist purposes at a trial which concluded at the Old Bailey this Wednesday (20 December).

Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev had been detained by armed police in Starbucks in Chiswick Business Park after security guards became suspicious of his activities close to Building 11, the former headquarters of the Iran International TV station.

He had travelled to Chiswick from Vienna on 11 February, heading straight to the business park after taking a minicab from Gatwick . He headed directly to the perimeter of Building 11 raising the suspicions of security staff.

When questioned by police at the scene he said he was taking pictures of the ‘beautiful’ surroundings and that he was due to meet a friend called Othman having told a guard earlier that he was visiting his brother who lived nearby. In fact, he has no brother living in the UK. He said had taken a video “to show to my three children as there was a lake there”. Later he claimed he believed a company operating from Building 11 was a Russian owned business that had scammed money from his father.

Dovtaev’s phone was recovered and analysed by detectives from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, revealing that he researched the building prior to his arrival in the UK. They found that he viewed a map and pictures of the site. He also viewed a number of videos that had evidently been taken by other unknown people at the same site in the weeks and months prior to his own visit, which had been shared with him via an encrypted messaging app.

CCTV recovered by detectives showed Dovtaev appearing to take video of the building with his phone. Although such no videos were found on his device, it is believed that he may have captured a video through an app on his phone which left no trace.

He was accused of being part of a terrorist plot in which he was scouting the area and filming security measures that had been put in place around the station which had an editorial line hostile to the Tehran regime. The country’s Minister of Intelligence had designated the Saudi-funded television channel as a terrorist organisation and state-owned TV had put it on a ‘terror blacklist’.

British security services had previously warned staff at the company that they were being targeted.

He was charged on 13 February with collecting information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, (contrary to Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000). At the start of the trial, the charge was amended to attempting to collect information likely to be useful for terrorism.

Testimony was given during the trial that Dovtaev was of Chechen origin and, since 2019, Russia, of which Chechnya is a part, and Iran had effectively been in a strategic alliance.

The court heard that several instances of ‘hostile reconnaissance’ had taken place at the business park by ‘others unknown’ which it was believed were part of a sustained effort to identify possible weak spots in security.

Dovtaev at Gunnersbury Station. Picture: Met Police

Dovtaev claimed in court that he had been set up and tricked by a contact who he was unable to name. He said he had been taking pictures of the buildings because he was “in wonder at the architecture”.

Dovtaev, who was described as an IT professional and is married with three children, did not react when the jury unanimously found him guilty after deliberating for over six hours.

Dominic Murphy, the head of the Met’s SO15 Counter-terrorism Command said, “For a considerable amount of time, we’ve been worried about threats projected into the UK from Iran.

“At this time, we don’t know why Dovtaev was conducting this activity except to say that we believe very strongly that it was for terrorism.

“We don’t know who did it but we have always been concerned about threats projected into the UK, and in this case particularly against Persian language media.

“I’m pleased to say the company are still broadcasting from London, but just in a different location now.”

He continued , “Dovtaev travelled more than 750 miles with the intention of gathering hostile reconnaissance. It was due to the heightened security, vigilance and decisive actions of security guards that Dovtaev’s activities were quickly spotted, and that led to his arrest.

“Dovtaev never said who he was working for or with and we could find no further evidence of this, but we did find enough evidence to show the jury that he was there to carry out terrorist-related activity.

“His actions were chilling and put into sharp focus our wider concerns about threats emanating from Iran that continue to be directed towards certain individuals and media organisations here in the UK.

“However, the protective security measures we helped to introduce meant his activity was thwarted. We will continue work extremely closely with our intelligence and security partners in the UK and abroad to combat any state threats.”