A former BBC commentator who ranted about the “chosen people” believing they “have exceptional rights to the whole region” on Radio Four’s Today programme was part of Iran’s delegation during negotiations with the US in Pakistan, the JC can reveal.
Sayed Mohammad Marandi was seen alongside senior Iranian regime officials including chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during the talks last month.
Marandi appeared on multiple BBC programmes between 2017 and 2024, and on other UK broadcasters’ news shows.
He has used his platform to promote Hezbollah, a proscribed terrorist group – which he described as “heroes” in a Channel 4 interview – and made extreme statements about Israel, which he has accused of carrying out a “Holocaust” in BBC and Sky interviews.
Now the shadow culture secretary is calling for greater scrutiny of pundits on British television.
Tory MP Nigel Huddleston described his repeated appearances as “deeply concerning” and said broadcasters must improve due diligence over contributors’ positions.
“Public service broadcasters have a responsibility to deliver impartial news. The BBC is guilty of breaking its own rules if they present people as objective commentators when they may, in fact, have an agenda and bias, as appears in this alarming case.
“We expect and require our national broadcaster to have rigorous due diligence processes regarding who they put on air and to be transparent when someone has a clear agenda,” he said.
During one interview on BBC HARDtalk, presenter Stephen Sackur described the pro-regime figure as “an experienced Iranian academic and sometime adviser to his government during international nuclear negotiations”, as well as “a consistently loyal defender of the government in Iran”.
But in a separate 2024 appearance on Today with Mishal Husain, Marandi was introduced primarily as a professor of English literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran.
During the interview, he repeatedly referred to Israel as a “genocidal regime” while accusing Britain and Western governments of “justifying crimes” committed by Israel.
He went on to refer to “chosen people,” stating live on air: “We are all Amalek in this part of the world. We are inferior. They are the chosen people, they are your allies… the only solution, the only way forward is resistance.
“There is nothing that will stop this Israeli regime, that is the nature of the regime, it’s an expansionist regime that believes in ethno-supremacism, believes that they are the chosen people, they have exceptional rights, and therefore have exceptional rights in the region. It’s not just Palestine today, it goes beyond the borders of Palestine.”
After the broadcast, the BBC defended its decision to host Marandi but acknowledged: “We should have continued to challenge his language throughout the interview.”
More recently, the pundit appeared on Channel 4 News in an interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy in March.
Born in Richmond, Virginia, Marandi is the son of Dr Alireza Marandi, who was a senior adviser to late supreme leader Ali Khamenei. In interviews with Iranian state television, he has spoken about his family’s ties to the Iranian leadership, including Khamenei’s son and the third supreme leader, Mojtaba. The JC previously revealed that Marandi served with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the Iran-Iraq war.
In a 2019 social media post, he shared a photograph of himself in uniform and wrote: “This photo was proudly taken… when I was a 16-year-old volunteer fighting the US-backed invasion of Iran.”
Marandi has become one of the Islamic Republic’s most prominent English-language defenders, regularly appearing in Western media while defending Tehran’s regional policies and attacking Western governments.
During the Woman, Life, Freedom protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, he dismissed demonstrations as “riots” and alleged organisations linked to Nato had trained protesters to incite violence.
The BBC and Marandi have been approached for comment.
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