Stabbed journalist: I thought they’d kill me, but I’ll carry on
AN IRANIAN journalist thought he was going to die during a knife attack outside his home but refuses to be cowed by the thugs thought to have been sent by the Tehran regime.
Pouria Zeraati – who works for London-based dissident broadcaster Iran International – was held by one attacker before being stabbed in the leg several times by another in Wimbledon, south west London.
Mr Zeraati, 36, presents talk show The Last Word on Iran International, designated a terrorist organisation by Tehran.
The channel was forced to stop broadcasting from London for months last year after concerns about an attack. Mr Zeraati had already been threatened before the stabbing last month. He is regarded as a criminal by the Tehran regime, which has put up posters of him titled ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’.
Speaking to The Sunday Times after the attack, Mr Zeraati said he believed he was targeted due to ‘his job’.
Believing it to be a ‘warning shot’ from Iran’s leader, he said: ‘In those few seconds, the only thing I was thinking was, “Where is he going to stab me? In my throat, in my eyes, in my heart?” They had the chance to kill me.’
He is now being protected by police with his wife Oldouz, 37, at a safe house. Mr Zeraati, who has lived in Britain for 15 years, dialled 999 and was taken to hospital but released without surgery. Despite being unable to walk properly, he returned to work on Friday with the message ‘the show must go on’.
The Metropolitan Police believe the suspects fled the UK within hours of the stabbing.
Iran’s charge d’affaires in the UK, Mehdi Hosseini Matin, said ‘we deny any link’ to the incident on March 29.
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