Iranian ambassador conducts dramatic press conference before leaving Australia

Men accompanying Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi have been filmed berating journalists attempting to interview the envoy as he departed Sydney on Thursday evening after being ordered out of the country.

Australian intelligence services revealed on Tuesday that they had concluded that the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guard had funded and directed at least two antisemitic attacks on Australian soil, prompting the Albanese government to expel Sadeghi.

The outgoing ambassador denied Iran had any involvement in the arson attacks that gutted Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Bondi and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in late 2024, and said the theocratic state was peaceful. Sadeghi said, without evidence, that the agencies’ conclusions could have come from a “conspiracy against our friendly relations with Australia”.

Before Sadeghi spoke to reporters, men accompanying him raised their voices at journalists attempting to interview the envoy and accused them of uncritically accepting the work of Australia’s intelligence services.

“You’re a pack of stenographers. That’s all you are, and it’s a disgrace. Is that really what you study? Is that really the pinnacle of your career,” one of the men said. “What a disgrace. What a disgrace.”

Sadeghi checked-in shortly after being interviewed. There are no direct flights from Australia to Iran, but there are connections via Gulf states and Turkey. The ambassador’s departure came about 48 hours after the revelations of foreign interference by Iran were made public.

The ambassador was on Tuesday called into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra, and told he had just days to leave the country.

The meeting took place just before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Australia’s intelligence services told the nation that Iran was accused of being involved in antisemitic attacks on Australian soil. They made clear that Sadeghi and his embassy staff were not involved in the incidents.

He was photographed at Iran’s embassy in Canberra on Wednesday, and staff were seen at both the embassy and the ambassador’s residence with moving boxes.

Sadeghi has said the conclusion of Australian intelligence that Iran had funded and directed antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Bondi is a “baseless allegation and lies”.

He said his expulsion had come about as a result of a “misunderstanding” in the relationship between Australia and Iran. To counter criticism that Iran had long sponsored antisemitic attacks via proxy forces abroad he claimed that Iran had a large Jewish community.

“I’m telling you they’re ordinary, just they have the synagogues,” Sadeghi said suggesting they were free to live a normal life. “I can just send, you know, the videos of how they practise.”

In recent years, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess has warned that Iran, alongside China and Russia, was among the most pernicious practitioners of foreign interference in Australia.

Iran, and the nation’s powerful armed forces group, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have been accused of acts of terror and other crimes in Western democracies, including, among others, the United States, Spain and France. The revolutionary guard will be listed as a terror group after Tuesday’s revelations.

Burgess said on Tuesday that security agencies had investigated dozens of incidents of antisemitism in Australia. “ASIO now assesses the Iranian government directed at least two and likely more attacks on Jewish interests in Australia,” he said.

Australia has also shuttered its embassy in the Iranian capital, Tehran. Eight Australians – six embassy staff and two dependents –  were moved to a third country for their safety on Monday.

It’s estimated that between 3000 and 4000 Australians, or dual citizens, live in Iran. The Australian government has advised Australians not to travel to Iran and warned they could be subject to arbitrary detention.

As he left, Sadeghi admitted his final days in the country had been challenging but kept a brave face. Australians, he said, were “very nice people”.

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