Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards have renewed a call to kill author Salman Rushdie, who was condemned to death 14 years ago for allegedly insulting Islam in his prize-winning novel The Satanic Verses.
The elite Guards said in a statement that the fatwa issued by the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini was "irrevocable", the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Khomeini issued the fatwa against Rushdie on February 14th, 1989, ordering Muslims to kill the novelist because he had allegedly insulted Islam.
In 1998, the Iranian government declared it would not support the fatwa but could not rescind the edict as, under Islamic law, that could be done only by the person who issued it. Khomeini died in June 1989.
IRNA quoted the Guards as saying "Khomeini's historical edict on Salman Rushdie is irrevocable and nothing can change it."
The Revolutionary Guards, Iran's main fighting force, are seen to be loyal to hardliners inside the country's Islamic government.
The Jomhuri Islami newspaper ran a 16-page supplement today with a front-page cartoon of a dead Rushdie being carried in a coffin draped with flags of Britain, the United States and Israel.
Ayatollah Hassan Saneii, head of the semi-official Khordad foundation, was quoted by Jomhuri Islami as saying that his foundation would now pay three million dollars to anyone who kills Rushdie.
The 1989 fatwa sent Rushdie into hiding under police protection but did not stop him from writing more novels.
In 1990, Rushdie published an apology and reiterated his respect for Islam.
AP