AN Iranian government official has denied that Tehran had any involvement in the attack on author Sir Salman Rushdie.
On Sunday, it was announced Rushdie had been taken of a ventilator and was talking again as he recovers from being stabbed whilst in the US.
Spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry Nasser Kanaani made the remarks in a briefing to journalists.
He said: “We, in the incident of the attack on Salman Rushdie in the US, do not consider that anyone deserves blame and accusations except him and his supporters.
“Nobody has the right to accuse Iran in this regard.”
Rushdie, 75, was stabbed on Friday while attending an event in western New York and suffered liver damage as well as severed nerves in his arm and an eye, his agent said.
The award-winning author has faced death threats over his book, The Satanic Verses, for more than 30 years.
Some of the scenes in the 1988 book depict a character modelled on the Prophet Muhammad which was met with widespread anger from members of the Muslim community.
Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, demanding Rushdie’s death.
An Iranian foundation had put up a bounty of over 3 million dollars (2.5m) for the author.
In 1991, Hitoshi Igarashi, who translated the book into Japanese, was murdered.
Rushdie’s attacker, 24-year-old Hadi Matar, has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the assault through his lawyer.
Kanaani said Iran did not “have any other information more than what the American media has reported”.
The West “condemning the actions of the attacker and in return glorifying the actions of the insulter to Islamic beliefs is a contradictory attitude,” he added.
