Common · People

Farzad Bazoft

Iranian-born journalist & double spy

Farzad Bazoft (Persian: فرزاد بازفت; ‎22 May 1958 – 15 March 1990) was an Iranian journalist who settled in the United Kingdom in the mid-1970s. He worked as a freelance reporter for The Observer. He was arrested by Iraqi authorities and executed in 1990 after being convicted of spying for Israel while working in Iraq.

Bazoft went to live in the United Kingdom in 1975 at the age of 16. He was sentenced to 18 months jail after robbing the Heart of England Building Society in Brackley in 1981. The sentence included a deportation order, which Bazoft appealed against successfully in 1983. After finishing his education he began a career as a freelance journalist, contributing articles about the Middle East and, in particular, the Iran–Iraq War to news outlets including The Observer and the BBC. In 1989 he was invited by the Iraqi government to come to Iraq along with other journalists to report on elections being held in Kurdistan. Before Bazoft set off, he learned about a mysterious explosion that had occurred on 19 September 1989 at the al-Iskandaria military complex, 50 kilometres (31 mi) south of Baghdad. The heavy detonation was heard as far away as Baghdad.

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