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Former British ambassador to U.S. attacked at London train station

By Ray Downs
A 2002 photo shows then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair with then-British Ambassador to the United States Christopher Meyer. Wednesday, Meyer was attacked at a train station in London. File Photo by Susan Walsh/EPA
A 2002 photo shows then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair with then-British Ambassador to the United States Christopher Meyer. Wednesday, Meyer was attacked at a train station in London. File Photo by Susan Walsh/EPA

July 12 (UPI) -- Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to the United States, has been hospitalized after he was attacked at a subway station in London on Wednesday.

Meyer, 74, was left with swollen eyes, a cut lip and possibly a broken nose, The Guardian reported. His injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.

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"He looks terrible. His left eye is like a golf ball and bleeding, the nose looks like it could be broken," Meyer's wife, Lady Catherine Meyer, told The Times. "I'm absolutely shocked by the level of the brutality. They really beat him. It's appalling -- like something you would see in a war zone."

The attack occurred as Meyer was changing trains at London's Victoria Station.

A 16-year-old boy and 15-year-old girl were arrested on "suspicion of assault occasioning grievous bodily harm," police said in a statement.

Meyer was the British ambassador to the United States from 1997 to 2003. An author of two books, including a memoir of his ambassadorship in the lead-up to the U.S. war in Iraq, he also served as the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, Britain's regulatory body for newspapers and television.

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