An Iranian journalist who was stabbed outside his London home last week has returned to work, saying the “show must go on”.
Pouria Zeraati was knifed in the leg by a group of three unknown assailants as he approached his car in Wimbledon on 29 March.
The journalist, who works for London-based dissident broadcaster Iran International, has spoken publicly for the first time since the attack and described the stabbing as a “warning shot”. Zeraati told ITV News: “The fact that they just stopped in my leg was their choice to do that.
“They had the opportunity to kill me because the way the second person was holding me and the first person took the knife out, they had the opportunity to stop anywhere they wanted.”
He added: “Whatever the motive was, the show must go on.”
The Metropolitan police has said no arrests have yet been made, but that they are confident suspects “do not present a risk to communities of London or the UK” as detectives believe the three suspects fled the country via Heathrow within hours of the stabbing.
Recalling the attack, Zeraati said he was “approached by a man, who pretended to be actually someone asking for £3 cash”. He added: “They held me strong, very firmly. The first person stabbed me in my leg.
“And those three, four seconds are moments I’ll never forget in my life because the moment I saw the knife in his hand until he stabbed me in my leg, all I was thinking was where he was going to hit, you know, is it going to cut my throat.
“My heart is he’s going to kill me. And then straight after stabbing in, they just started running away.”
Police were called to an address in Wimbledon at 2.49pm on 29 March after reports of a man in his 30s being attacked and sustaining a leg injury.
The Iran International spokesperson, Adam Baillie, said Tehran’s revolutionary guards have been targeting Iran International.
The Farsi-language dissident channel aims to provide independent coverage of Iran, but the Tehran regime has declared it a terrorist organisation. Iran’s charge d’affaires in the UK, Mehdi Hosseini Matin, said: “We deny any link [to the incident].”