Salman Rushdie suffered ‘severe injuries’ from Friday’s attack but is now recovering (Picture: AP/Getty Images)
Salman Rushdie suffered ‘severe injuries’ from Friday’s attack but is now recovering (Picture: AP/Getty Images)

Downing Street has said it is ‘ludicrous’ to suggest Sir Salman Rushdie holds any responsibility for the attack on him.

An Iranian official today denied that Tehran was involved in the Friday’s incident.

But the country’s foreign ministry said that the writer and his supporters ‘are to blame for what happened to him’.

Spokesman Nasser Kanaani added: ‘Freedom of speech does not justify Salman Rushdie’s insults upon religion and offence of its sanctities.’

Downing Street had condemned Iran’s comments and branded them ‘ludicrous’.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman added: ‘This was not just an attack on him, it was an attack on the right to free speech and expression.

‘And the UK government stands both by him and his family but equally we will stand in defence of free speech around the world.’

Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy labelled the comments ‘truly sickening’.

‘Any attack on him is an assault on free speech and liberty,’ he said.

Up Next

Hadi Matar
Hadi Matar, 24, denies attempted murder (Picture: AP)

‘The UK government must urgently put diplomatic pressure on the Iranian government to withdraw and apologise for these shameful comments.’

Sir Salman, 75, was stabbed on Friday just as he was about to speak at an event in upstate New York.

He suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, his agent said. He was likely to lose the injured eye.

His attacker, 24-year-old Hadi Matar, from Fairview, New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder.

Sir Salman has faced death threats over his 1988 book, The Satanic Verses, for more than 30 years.

The award-winning novel was partly influenced by the life of the Prophet Mohammed and was considered blasphemous by many Muslims.

A year after it was published Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, demanding his death.

The Mumbai-born British-American writer spent years in hiding and required 24/7 police protection as a result, and several plots on his life have been uncovered.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by JEAN-PHILIPPE BALTEL/SIPA/Shutterstock (10101157be) Salman Rushdie (Ahmed Salman Rushdie) 'La Grande Librairie' TV show, Paris, France - 10 Feb 2019
Sir Salman has faced threats on his life for decades over his 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses (Picture: Shutterstock)

It wasn’t until 1998 that the Iranian government said it would not longer officially back the fatwa.

However anti-Rushdie sentiment still lingered, and in 2012 a semi-official Iranian religious foundation raising a bounty on his life from $2.8million to $3.3million.

Mr Kanaani said that 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’, Mr Kanaani added.

Ali Tehfe, mayor of Yaroun in the south of Lebanon, said that Matar was the son of a man from the town.

The suspect’s parents emigrated to the United States and he was born and raised there, the mayor added.

Sir Salman being airlifted to hospital from the Chautauqua Institution (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)

Investigators will seek to determine if the alleged attacker had ties or sympathies with Shi’ite extremist groups like Hezbollah.

The Lebanese organisation, which has links to terrorist groups, told Reuters it had no involvement or contact with the suspect.

Although he survived Friday’s attack, Sir Salman’s injuries have been ‘life-changing’, having been stabbed about 12 times including in the face and neck.

One of the wounds caused a puncture to his eye, and another to his liver. His son Zafar Rushdie said he was ‘able to say a few words’ and has kept his ‘usual feisty and defiant sense of humour’.

Yesterday Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul visited the Chautauqua Institution, near Buffalo, where Sir Salman was attacked.

In a speech, she said: ‘I want it out there that a man with a knife cannot silence a man with a pen.’

She added: ‘Mr Rushdie spent more than a decade of his life in hiding. And finally he said, no more, I’m coming out. I’m coming out of the shadows.

‘I will not be bowed by fear or a threat. And to those of us who go about our daily lives, if that’s not an inspiration, I don’t know what is.’

Sir Salman’s ex-wife, author and TV presenter Padma Lakshmi, was among those expressing their relief at the update on the Quichotte author’s health.

Lakshmi, who was married to Sir Salman between 2004 and 2007, tweeted: ‘Relieved @SalmanRushdie is pulling through after Friday’s nightmare. Worried and wordless, can finally exhale. Now hoping for swift healing.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.