Police investigate stabbing incident in Wimbledon

An investigation has been launched following a stabbing in south London.

Police were called at 14:49hrs on Friday, 29 March to an address in Wimbledon after a man in his 30s was attacked and sustained an injury to his leg.

London Ambulance Service paramedics attended with police and the man was treated before being taken to hospital. Thankfully his condition is not believed to be life-threatening and he is in a stable condition.

At this stage, it is not clear why the victim was attacked and officers are keeping an open mind as to any motivation behind this.

However, due to the victim’s occupation as a journalist at a Persian-language media organisation based in the UK, coupled with the fact that there has been a number of threats directed towards this group of journalists in recent times, the incident is being investigated by specialist officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command.

Commander Dominic Murphy, Head of the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, said: "While we are keeping an open mind, given the occupation of the victim and our publicised concerns about the threat to employees of that organisation, the investigation is being led by the Counter Terrorism Command.

“I must stress that, at this early stage of our investigation, we do not know the reason why this victim was attacked and there could be a number of explanations for this. While we continue to assess the circumstances of this incident, detectives are following a number of lines of enquiry and our priority at this time is to try and identify whoever was behind this attack and to arrest them.

“I appreciate the wider concern this incident may cause – particularly amongst others in similar lines of work, and those from Iranian communities. We continue to work closely with the victim’s organisation and as a precaution we’ll have additional patrols in the Wimbledon area as well as other sites around London to provide reassurance over the coming days to those affected and concerned.

“Finally, I would urge anyone in the Wimbledon area who may have seen anything or anyone acting suspiciously today to get in touch with us.”

Anyone with information should contact police by calling 0800 789 321.
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Background in relation to wider threats projected from Iran into the UK:

Counter Terrorism Policing continues to deal with threats projected into the UK from Iran. Since 2022, a number of plots to either kidnap or even kill British or UK-based individuals perceived as enemies of the Iranian regime have been disrupted.

In addition, specialist officers continue to liaise closely with individuals and organisations affected – including Persian-language media organisations – to give them appropriate safety and security advice.

Counter Terrorism Policing continues to work closely with intelligence partners and others to counter these types of threat - either through protective security measures or disruptive action.

If anyone has concerns over their own safety or the safety of somebody else, they should contact their local police force.

As always, we continue to ask the public to remain vigilant and report anything that doesn't look or feel right to police by calling 0800 789 321 or call 999 if it is an emergency.