DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – An Iranian official denied on Monday that Tehran was involved in the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie, although he tried to justify the attack in the Islamic Republic’s first public comments on the bloodshed.
The statements by Nasser Kanaani, a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, came three days after Rushdie was injured in New York state.  The writer has been taken off a ventilator and is “on the road to recovery,” according to his agent.
Rushdie, 75, has faced death threats for more than 30 years over his novel “The Satanic Verses,” whose depiction of the prophet Muhammad was considered blasphemous by some Muslims.
In 1989, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or Islamic edict, calling for the author’s death, and while Iran has not focused on Rushdie in recent years, the edict remains in effect.
Also, a semi-official Iranian institution had offered a reward of more than $3 million for the writer’s murder.  He has not commented on the attack.
“Regarding the attack on Salman Rushdie in America, we do not consider anyone worthy of reprimand, blame or even condemnation, except for him (Rushdi) and his supporters,” Kanaani said.
“In this context, no one can blame the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added.  “We believe the insults made and the support he received was an insult against followers of all faiths.”
Iran has denied conducting other operations abroad against dissidents in the years since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, although prosecutors and Western governments have attributed such attacks to Tehran.
Rushdie was attacked on Friday as he was about to give a lecture in western New York.  He suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and eye, according to his agent, Andrew Wylie.  Rushdie is likely to lose the eye, Wally said.
His alleged assailant, Hadi Matar, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault.
Matar, 24, was born in the US to parents who immigrated from Yaroun in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border, according to the village’s mayor.
Matar had been living in New Jersey in recent years with his mother, who told London’s Daily Mail that her son had become moody and more religious after a month-long trip to Lebanon in 2018.
“I expected him to come back motivated, finish school, get his degree and a job.  But instead it was closed in the basement.  He had changed a lot, he didn’t say anything to me or his sisters for months,” Silvana Fardos said.
Village records in Yaroun show that Matar has Lebanese citizenship and is Shia, an official there said.  The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said Matar’s father lives there but has been in isolation since the attack.
Flags of the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah, along with portraits of Hezbollah and Iranian leaders, hang throughout the village.  Israel has bombed Hezbollah positions nearby in the past.
Police in New York have offered no motive for the attack, although prosecutor Jason Schmidt referred to Rushdie’s reward when arguing against bail during a hearing over the weekend.
“Even if this court were to set bail at a million dollars, we run the risk of the bail being made,” Schmidt said.
In his remarks on Monday, Kanaani added that Iran “had no other information beyond what the US media reported.”  He also implied that Rushdie carried out the attack on himself.
“Salman Rushdie exposed himself to popular anger and rage by insulting the sanctity of Islam and crossing the red lines of more than 1.5 billion Muslims and also the red lines of followers of all divine religions,” Kanani said.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, while not directly blaming Tehran for the attack on Rushdie, denounced Iran in a statement on Monday, praising the author’s support for freedom of expression and religion.
“Iranian state institutions have incited violence against Rushdie for generations, and state media recently glorified his assassination attempt,” Blinken said.  “This is deplorable.”
While fatwas can be revoked, Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who took over after Khomeini’s death, has never done so.  As recently as 2017, Khamenei said: “The decree is as issued by Imam Khomeini.”
Tensions between Iran and the West, particularly the US, have risen since then-President Donald Trump pulled America out of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
A drone strike ordered by Trump killed a top general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 2020, heightening those tensions.
Last week, the US accused a Guard member in absentia of plotting to kill one-time Trump adviser and Iran hawk John Bolton.  Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and an aide are under 24-hour security over alleged threats from Iran.
US prosecutors also say Iran tried in 2021 to kidnap an Iranian opposition activist and author living in New York.  In recent days, a man with a rifle was arrested near her home.
Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.