Iran foundation offers reward to Rushdie’s attacker ‘to honour this brave action’
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Dubai: A foundation in Iran offered the attacker of iconic author Salman Rushdie a reward of 1,000 square metres of agricultural land.
The report comes as the author is still recovering from injuries he received in the attack at a literary event last year in New York.
The secretary of the foundation, Mohammad Esmail Zerei said Rushdie is no more than a living dead, according to Reuters.
Iran’s state TV reported of the offer through its Telegram channel, Reuters reported adding that the Iranian foundation has praised the attacker.
75-year-old author lost an eye and the use of one hand after a 24-year-old Shi'ite Muslim American from New Jersey attacked him on the stage in Lake Erie in western New York in August.
Mohammad Esmail Zarei, secretary of the Foundation to Implement Imam Khomeini's Fatwas, reportedly praised the ‘brave action’ of the man.
He added the young American made Muslims happy by blinding Rushdie’s one eye and disabling his one hand.
The land offered to honour the ‘brave action’ will be donated to the person or his legal representatives, Zarei said.
The attack came nearly 33 years after Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued fatwa on Rushdie for his novel ‘The Satanic Verses’.
The fatwa was issued to carry out by Muslims Ruhollah Khomeini’s edict to kill Rushdie.
Rushdie’s novel ‘The Satanic Verses’ kicked up a storm around the world after Iran’s religious head called the book blasphemous.
Following the fatwa, the Indian-origin author spent nine years with a bounty on his head under the protection of British police.
Rushdie’s new novel “Victory City,” came out in January as he was still struggling with injuries inflicted by the attacker.