'I'll never forget': Iranian journalist recalls moment he was stabbed outside London home

Pouria Zeraati, a journalist for broadcaster Iran International who was stabbed outside his home in London, spoke publicly for the first time since the attack, as ITV News Global Security Editor Rohit Kachroo reports

An Iranian journalist, who was stabbed outside his house last week, said the seconds after the attack are moments he will "never forget in his life" in an exclusive interview with ITV News.

Pouria Zeraati returned to work for the first time on Friday, saying "whatever the motive was, the show must go on".

He recalled the events of March 29 after he was knifed in the leg near his London home saying he was heading towards his car when he was "approached by a man, who pretended to be actually someone asking for £3 cash".

Mr Zeraati added that the culprits held him down "very firmly" as the first person stabbed him.

"Those three, four seconds are moments I'll never forget in my life because the moment I saw the knife in the 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."

The Metropolitan Police said it was called at 2.49pm to an address in Wimbledon, South London, after a man in his 30s was attacked and sustained an injury to his leg. He was taken to hospital for treatment.

Although no motive has yet been established, counter-terrorism police are investigating the attack due to previous threats against UK-based Iranian journalists.

ITV News previously revealed an assassination plot in 2002 against two of the channel's presenters, who were not Mr Zeraati,.

No arrests have yet been made, but the Met said it was confident the suspects “do not present a risk to communities of London or the UK”.

Detectives investigating believe the three suspects fled the country within hours of the attack and traced a getaway car to Heathrow Airport.

London-based dissident channel Iran International aims to provide independent coverage of Iran, but the Tehran regime has declared it a terrorist organisation.

Just a week on from the attack, a defiant Mr Zeraati will return to TV screens tonight.

Mr Zeraati has previously reported on anti-government protests and stories that are critical of the Iranian regime.

On Saturday, Iran International spokesman Adam Baillie said the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had been targeting journalists and their families.

Mr Zeraati told ITV News he believes the attack to be a "warning shot" because "they had the opportunity to kill" him.

"The fact that they just stopped in my leg was their choice to do that," he said, "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."

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

The attack comes after ITV News revealed a "bride and groom" plot in 2002 by the Iranian regime to kill two prominent presenters on the channel, Sima Sabet and Fardad Farahzad.

Ms Sabet and Mr Farahzad only discovered they were the subject of the assassination plot when they were contacted by ITV News in December, more than a year after it was hatched.

The threat was deemed so dangerous that armed police were stationed outside the channel's London studios for a period of time.

The UK Government announced sanctions against two Iranian officials with links to Tehran's regime after the ITV News exposé was broadcast.

Among seven individuals sanctioned by the US and UK were Mohammed Ansari, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force (IRGC-QF) official, and Muhammed Abd al-Razek Kanafani, who were named in the report for threatening to kill Iran International journalists in London.

Unit 840, a group within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that was named in the ITV News report for co-ordinating threats to Iran International, was also sanctioned.

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