Iran denies being behind the attack on Salman Rushdie and directly blames the writer

By

Iran's theocratic government denied this Monday that it was involved in the attack on British writer of Indian origin Salman Rushdie, who received direct death threats from the Iranian regime in the 1980s after the publication of his novel 

"We, in the incident of the attack on Salman Rushdie in the United States, do not consider that anyone deserves the blame and the accusations, except him and his supporters," Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said.

"No one has the right to accuse Iran in this regard," he stressed.

Writer Salman Rushdie during an event in Hamburg, Germany, on November 12, 2019. Tristar Media / Getty Images

Rushdie, 75, was stabbed in upstate New York on August 12 while participating in a rally about the importance of the United States giving asylum to exiled writers.

As he spoke, a man jumped on him and stabbed him.

He suffered liver damage, one eye and the nerves in one arm were severed.

After spending a few hours in critical condition, the doctors were able to disconnect him from the artificial respirator and he is currently "in recovery," according to his agent.

The life of the writer, one of the most successful writers in the English language, was turned upside down in 1988 when he published

and has been facing death threats for 30 years.

[Trump, on the attack on Iran: "We acted to stop a war, not to start one"]

The then supreme leader of Iran, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa (an Islamic legal mandate) demanding his death, considering that the novel was an insult against the Koran, Muhammad and Islam, the religion to which the family of Rushdie although he did not practice it.

A semi-official Iranian foundation offered a reward of more than 3 million dollars for the author.

The charges facing the alleged culprit in the stabbing of writer Salman Rushdie

Aug. 13, 202200:29

Iran has denied carrying out operations abroad against dissidents in the years since the country's Islamic Revolution in 1979, despite Western governments and prosecutors attributing such attacks to the regime.

Although he has not focused on the British writer in recent years, the fatwa is still in force.

The material author of the attack against Rushdie, Hadi Matar, 24, pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

New York police have not yet released a motive for the attack, although District Attorney Jason Schmidt alluded during a hearing Saturday to the reward being offered for Rushdie.

[24-Year-Old Charged With Attempted Aggravated Murder for Stabbing Writer Salman Rushdie]

"Even if this court sets bail at $1 million, we run the risk of bail being posted," Schmidt said.

Matar was born in the United States, of parents who emigrated from Yaroun, a town located in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel, where flags of the Shiite group Hezbollah hang, considered terrorist by the United States and which receives help from Iran.

Israel has in the past bombed Hezbollah positions in its vicinity.

Salman Rushdie stabbing in New York comes after decades of Iranian death threats

Aug. 12, 202200:29

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman reiterated that his country "has no more information than what has been released by the US media" about the attack.

The fact that the West "condemns the actions of the attacker and instead glorifies the actions of the insulter of Islamic beliefs is a contradictory attitude," Kanaani said.