Gangs of Tehran: how Iran takes out its enemies abroad

‘It was Friday afternoon, around 2.45. I came out of the house and was going towards the car on the driver’s side,’ Pouria Zeraati says casually. Zeraati – a presenter at the London-based TV station, Iran International – is recounting what was probably an Iranian state-sponsored attack. ‘I was approached by a man who pretended to be someone asking for £3. The second man then approached. They held me strong, very firmly, and the first person stabbed me in my leg.’

The Iranian regime is reshaping the murder-for-hire market in the US and parts of Europe

Zeraati is talking on his first day back at work since he was knifed on Good Friday in Wimbledon. It’s still too painful for him to sit down, so we’re standing for our conversation. He finds it uncomfortable to walk too, so for support he’s perching against the plastic desk on the set of his weekly chat show as he describes what happened.

‘Those three, four seconds are moments I’ll never forget, because from the point I saw the knife in his hand until he stabbed me in my leg, all I was thinking was where he was going to hit.’ He was overcome, he says, with the worry: ‘Is he going to cut my throat?’

After the initial shock, it took Zeraati a few minutes to consider what hadn’t happened. The attackers hadn’t tried to take his wallet, his keys, his electronic devices or anything else. He suspects they wanted to wound him but not kill him. This was a warning, not an ordinary violent mugging. He concluded that he was targeted because of who he is – a high-profile figure on a television channel well-known for telling the truth about the Iranian regime.