London – Police said Tuesday evening that three people suspected of being involved in a stabbing attack on a journalist working for a Iranian news channel outside his London home had fled Britain. The London Metropolitan Police said Iran International Journalist Pouria Zeraati suffered a leg injury when he was stabbed on Friday afternoon.
Zeraati said he was released from a hospital in the British capital on Saturday and was “residing in a safe place under the supervision of the Met Police” with his wife.
“The amount of your sympathy, kindness and love in recent days has been and remains the greatest and best energy for my recovery process,” Zeraati said in a post on social media.
Considered an opposition channel by many inside the country, Iran International has become an important source of information for Iranians on the anti-government protests that have swept their country following the Death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 in custody.
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The network, operated largely by Iranian nationals living in the United Kingdom and the United States, broadcast on social networks videos sent by people in the street during this unprecedented challenge to the influence of the Iranian authorities on power.
Although it is officially banned in Iran, the channel is accessible via satellite.
In late 2022, counterterrorism police in London informed some Iran International employees that credible threats had been made against their lives. Armed security staff and new barriers were installed outside their London studio, before the entire studio was moved to another location.
Tehran says the channel has ties to Saudi Arabia, its political rival, and authorities have labeled its employees terrorists. Iran International says its parent company receives money from a Saudi financier but is editorially independent.
London police said Zeratti was attacked around 3 p.m. on Friday, when he was approached by two men on his residential street. He was injured in the leg and the suspects fled in a vehicle driven by a third suspect. The three men abandoned the car, which was recovered and is currently being examined by police, and left the UK from Heathrow Airport a few hours later.
Authorities did not say where the men had gone from the United Kingdom, but said they were working with international partners to gather more information.
“We are still in the early stages of our investigation, we do not know why this victim was attacked and there could be a number of explanations for this,” said Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the command counter-terrorism officer of the Met, in a press release. statement. “All lines of inquiry are being followed and we are keeping an open mind about any potential motivation for the attack.”
The Iranian charge d’affaires in London, Mehdi Hosseini Matin, denied “any link” between the government in Tehran and the knife attacks in London, according to the British newspaper Independent.
Haley Ott
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