Ex-Iranian vice-president living in UK says he’s not to blame for Salman Rushdie’s stabbing despite backing fatwa on him
A FORMER vice-president of Iran, now living in the UK, says he is not to blame for Salman Rushdie’s stabbing — despite backing the fatwa on him.
Sayyid Ata’ollah Mohajerani was defiant when we tracked him down to his London home.
He was the vice-president of Iran’s government that issued a death sentence over Rushdie’s 1988 book The Satanic Verses.
The British author, 75, was stabbed as he was due to give a lecture in the US earlier this month.
Asked by the Sun on Sunday if he felt any responsibility for the outrage, Mohajerani, 68, said: “Absolutely not.”
Outside his home in Harrow, North West London, he said: “I wrote a book about an explanation of the fatwa.
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“It was 32 years ago. It was a strange time in Iran.
“I focused on the interpretation of the fatwa.”
In his 1989 book backing Rushdie’s death sentence over his “blasphemous” novel, Mohajerani wrote “whoever insults the prophet deserves to be killed”.
He has lived in Britain for 20 years after falling out with the Iranian regime.
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His wife works for a taxpayer-funded university in the capital.
Justice for Iran, a human rights organisation, has filed a complaint to police in Britain over Mohajerani’s book.
Tory MP Nigel Mills said: “It is outrageous that he takes no responsibility.
“There’s questions over how he has been allowed to remain in Britain.”
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Rushdie is still recovering in hospital from injuries to his eye, arm and liver.
US-born Hadi Matar, 24, has denied attempted murder and assault.