November 19, 2021
Almost three decades after the Norwegian publisher of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses was shot, a former Iranian diplomat has been charged in the attempted murder.
The Norwegian state broadcaster NRK reported November 13 that an Iranian diplomat posted to Norway in 1993 and a Lebanese man were charged over the attempt to kill William Nygaard in Oslo.
Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini issued a death decree authorizing Muslims to kill Rushdie for writing Satanic Verses and extended the decree to anyone involved in producing the novel.
Nygaard published the Norwegian translation of the book. He survived three bullets but spent months in a hospital.
The police at the time suspected personal motives in the attempted murder, according to The New York Times, and for years there was no movement in the case. In October 2018, the Norwegian police announced their intention to file charges against two suspects, but no names or clues were provided.
The radio did not name the men charged, but Iranian journalist Kambiz Ghafouri, who lives in exile, tweeted the next day that the Iranian was Mohammad Nik-Khah, who was first secretary of the Iranian embassy in Norway in 1993. Nik-Khah is most probably in Iran. The Iranian embassy at the time announced that Nik-Khah, who had been in Norway since 1989, had left the country a few days before the attack on Nygaard.
The Lebanese man was the actual gunmen. He has been identified as Khaled Musawi. He now lives in Lebanon.
The Norwegian publisher was not the only one targeted as a result of Khomeini’s death decree. Ettore Capriolo, the Italian publisher of the book, survived a stabbing, in July 1991.
