Iranian group to reward attacker of Salman Rushdie

The man who attacked Salman Rushdie last year will receive a plot of land in Iran from an Iranian organization.

Hojjat ol-Eslam Mohammad Esmaeil Zarei, the secretary of the so-called Popular Network for Enforcing Imam Khomeini's Fatwa for the Execution of Infidel Salman Rushdie, said that Hadi Matar or his legal representative would be able to claim 1,000 square metres of "fertile and valuable" plot of land in Iran, the Fars news agency reported on February 20.

"We warmly thank this young American for his brave action in carrying out the imam's [Khomeini's] historic fatwa," Zarei said.

Rushdie, who has long faced death threats for his novel The Satanic Verses, was stabbed on stage in August 2022 during an event in New York State. The author lost vision in one eye and the use of one hand following the stabbing. The attacker, US-born Hadi Matar, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder.

Iran has denied involvement in the attack, instead blaming "Rushdie and his supporters" for the incident.

Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic, issued a fatwa in February 1989 calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie shortly after The Satanic Verses was published. The state-run 15 Khordad Foundation has placed a $3.3 million bounty on the novelist, for which it has been sanctioned by the US.