UK counterterrorism police examine assault on Iranian journalist exterior his London dwelling | EUROtoday

Issued on: 30/03/2024 – 16:09

2 min

Pouria Zeraati, a presenter at London-based Iran International, was stabbed within the leg Friday afternoon and is in steady situation at a hospital, the station mentioned. His situation is just not believed to be life-threatening.

London’s Metropolitan Police Service mentioned Zeraati’s occupation, along with current threats to U.Okay.-based Iranian journalists, triggered the counterterrorism probe, although the motivation for the assault remains to be unclear.

“While we proceed to evaluate the circumstances of this incident, detectives are following a lot of traces of inquiry and our precedence presently is to attempt to establish whoever was behind this assault and to arrest them,” Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said in a statement.

“I appreciate the wider concern this incident may cause — particularly amongst others in similar lines of work, and those from Iranian communities.”

Iran International spokesman Adam Baillie mentioned the stabbing was “hugely frightening.” Although the channel’s journalists have been threatened in the past, this is the first attack of its kind, Baillie told the BBC.

“It was a shocking, shocking incident, whatever the outcome of an investigation reveals,” he said.

Mehdi Hosseini Matin, Iran’s charge d’affaires in the UK, said “we deny any link” to the incident.

Police say they’ve disrupted “a number” of plots to kill or kidnap individuals within the U.Okay. who have been seen as enemies of the Iranian authorities. Officers are working with intelligence businesses to disrupt future plots and supply safety for the focused organizations and people, police mentioned.

Early final 12 months, Iran International quickly shut down its operations in London and moved to studios in Washington, D.C., after what it described as an escalation of “state-backed threats from Iran.” The station resumed operations at a brand new location in London final September.

An Austrian man was convicted in December of trying to gather data prone to be helpful for terrorism after safety guards noticed him finishing up surveillance on the previous headquarters of Iran International. Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev, 31, was sentenced to a few years and 6 months in jail.

Alicia Kearns, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, expressed concern that Britain nonetheless isn’t doing sufficient to guard opponents of the Iranian authorities.

“Whilst we don’t know the circumstances of this attack, Iran continues to hunt down those brave enough to speak out against the regime,” Kearns mentioned on X, previously Twitter. “Yet I remain unconvinced that we and our allies have clear strategies to protect people in our countries from them, and protect our interests abroad.”

Earlier this month, Foreign Secretary David Cameron condemned the conviction in absentia of 10 journalists from the BBC’s Persian service on propaganda fees towards the Islamic Republic of Iran, calling it “completely unacceptable.”

“And also, when I last met the Iranian foreign minister, I raised the case of the fact that Iran was paying thugs to try and murder Iranian journalists providing free and independent information for Iran TV in Britain,” Cameron mentioned within the House of Lords. “On both counts, in my view, they are guilty.”

(AP)