Britain still officially licenses a London-based TV channel that backs the Iranian regime, GB News can reveal – even as the UK faced more than twenty “potentially lethal Iran-backed plots” last year, according to MI5.
LuaLua TV repeats some of the Tehran government’s talking points. It mourned the death of the Hezbollah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah, closely linked to Iran. Its owner, Hussein al-Akraf, is all over social media, literally singing the praises of both Nasrallah and Ayatalloh Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian Islamic revolution.
In 2021, under President Joe Biden, LuaLua was banned in the United States and its website seized as part of a crackdown on pro-Iranian and pro-Hezbollah outlets.
But a GB News investigation has found that it continues to operate in London – and still holds an official British broadcasting licence from the regulator, Ofcom.
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For several years, LuaLua was even allowed to bring foreign nationals into Britain as a sponsor for “Tier 2,” skilled worker, visas. That privilege has been revoked – but the Home Office could not say how many migrants the station brought in, or how many of them are still here, though it is understood none were Iranians.
We went to Park Royal, a ramshackle trading estate off the A40 in west London filled with auto repair workshops, food service warehouses, Arab bakeries, and the odd smashed-up car. Down a side street, there’s a building with around a dozen satellite dishes stuck to the wall. This is LuaLua’s headquarters, according to records for its parent company, Shells for Media Productions Ltd.
The building was shuttered, and nobody answered the door. But neighbouring businesses, and the landlord, reached by phone, said the TV channel’s office was in regular use.
Last year, LuaLua put out a heartfelt tribute to Nasrallah, the Hezbollah terror leader, after he was killed by the Israelis. It said: “We promise you that we will commit your guidance and walk on your path and take your positions and work with your commandments….do not think that those who were killed in the way of Allah are dead, but that they will be given to their Lord.”
A screengrab from a 2017 LuaLua broadcast
|LUALUA TV
Charlie visited the company headquarters
|GB NEWS
It also cuts-and-pastes some statements from Iran regime bodies, such as the state media council. Mr al-Akraf, the owner, is prominent on social media, including with an an hour-long YouTube eulogy to Khomeini. We are “inspired by Khomeini’s readings,” he sings. The Iranian revolutionary leader, he writes, is “in my heart.”
Hezbollah, the Iran-linked terror group banned throughout the Western world, is another al-Akraf favourite. As he puts it, they are “God’s true promise.”
Britain faces what the government’s independent counter-terror adviser, Jonathan Hall KC, calls an “extraordinary” threat from Iran. That danger appears to be escalating. The twenty “potentially lethal” plots tracked by MI5 in the last year follow at least 15 attempts over the preceding three years by Iranian agents to kidnap or kill people in Britain. For its part, Iran calls Britain its “most treacherous” enemy.
But this grave risk doesn't seem to have got through to all parts of the British state.
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The building was shuttered, and nobody answered the door
|GB NEWS
We asked the regulator, Ofcom, what investigations it had done before issuing LuaLua with a licence. It said it “must ensure that any holder of a broadcast licence is a fit and proper person” and it takes “all relevant information into account when doing so”.
Ofcom told us it couldn’t now do anything about LuaLua’s output because it now broadcasts only online. A spokesman said: “Its content is not subject to Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code or related regulations. Some organisations may hold an Ofcom licence without actively using it.”
The broadcaster's company did not respond to a request for comment.
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