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LITERATURE-POLICE-IRAN-ISLAM-CRIME-NORWAY
Norway accuses foreign nationals of 1993 ‘Satanic Verses’ attack
OSLO, Oct 9, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Norwegian police have formally accused
several foreign nationals over a 1993 attack on the Norwegian publisher of
“The Satanic Verses”, thus preventing the statute of limitations from closing
the case.
The National Criminal Investigation Service said Tuesday “foreign nationals
who are not in Norway” were suspected of “attempted murder” in the attack on
William Nygaard.
But the agency did not specify their number, identity or nationality.
William Nygaard was seriously wounded when he was shot three times in the
back near his home in Oslo on October 11 1993.
No one was arrested for the attack, but police believe it was linked to the
1989 publication of the Norwegian version of Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic
Verses” by a publishing house that Nygaard ran.
This latest move by the police prevents the usual 25-year statute of
limitations closing the case. It would have taken effect on October 11.
“I am relieved and pleased with the development in this case, not least
that the authorities and the police say the attack appears to have targeted
freedom of expression,” 75-year-old Nygaard said.
The case led to diplomatic tensions between Norway and Iran in the 1990s.
After the 1988 publication of the “Satanic Verses”, deemed blasphemous by
some in the Muslim world, Iran’s former supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini issued a “fatwa” calling for the death of Salman Rushdie and his
editors.
BSS/AFP/RY/1945 hrs