The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Footballer hailed after fending off armed attackers
Crime: Arsenal teammates targeted by thieves
Arsenal defender Sead Kolasinac has been hailed as a hero after fending off two armed attackers who targeted himself, teammate Mesut Ozil and their wives.
In a widely shared video, Kolasinac can be seen fighting off masked men with knives after the group were confronted in northwest London.
Yasmin Tahsiner, the manager of a restaurant where the players sought refuge after the incident, said she received a call from Kolasinac and Ozil’s wife Amine at around 5pm on Thursday explaining they were being chased in their car by two attackers on mopeds.
Ms Tahsiner, who manages the Turkish restaurant Likya in Golders Green, said: “They parked the car outside the restaurant . . . but before that they had been chased for five or 10 minutes.
“They’d been (throwing) bricks on their car.”
Ms Tahsiner said she knew the footballers already and denied they were “shaken up” afterwards.
She said Kolasinac had acted heroically, and added: “From what I’ve seen, both (Ozil and Kolasinac) handled it very well.”
Following news coverage of the attack, Kolasinac tweeted a picture of himself and Ozil smiling, adding: “Think we’re fine”.
“You don’t always think these things are going to happen in daytime,” Ms Tahsiner said, adding that “lots of people” walked out on to the street and witnessed the incident.
The owner of the Hampstead property outside which the pair were initially attacked has said he has been targeted five times in the same area.
The property owner, who chose not to be named, said he had a knife held to his neck in one incident and he called on police to “pull their finger out” after a spate of crimes in that part of north-west London.
“I’ve been done five times myself,” he said. “I had a knife held to my neck at midday at the traffic lights, I was physically thrown in a bus lane at 6.30am when I was coming out of my office – the list goes on and on.”
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said no arrests have yet been made in connection with Thursday’s incident.