Attackers stabbed and wounded a leading Saudi dissident at his London home late last night in an attack he blamed on the Saudi government.
Mr Saad al-Fagih, head of the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia and a critic of the Saudi royal family, was admitted to hospital with a leg wound that was not life threatening.
Mr Mohammed al-Masari, a friend of Mr al-Fagih, said the dissident was attacked by two men who had claimed to be plumbers.
"[They] sprayed him with something to make him drowsy. A fight ensued and Fagih grabbed a table to defend himself and then the two men knifed him," Mr Masari told reporters.
"As they were going away, they said: 'Take that as a message from the Saudi government'."
There was no immediate comment from Saudi authorities. Mr Fagih's group, formed in 1994, has used fax, Internet and radio, as well as its new Islah TV channel, to circumvent official controls on information and free speech in Saudi Arabia. He advocates peaceful political change in the kingdom.
Mr Fagih told Qatar-based al-Jazeera television he believed Saudi Arabia was behind the attack by the two, who he said had appeared to be English. "They had come in an intentional way with a paper that had my name written on it," Mr Fagih said.
He said some sympathisers linked to Saudi intelligence services had warned him Saudi authorities might be planning to act against him after failing to discredit him politically.