Tehran: Iran's hardline Revolutionary Guards declared yesterday that the death sentence passed against British writer Salman Rushdie, was irreversible and said Muslims would one day carry it out. The Guards were marking the anniversary of the 1989 fatwa pronounced against Rushdie by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who considered his novel The Satanic Verses blasphemous.
"The day will come when the Muslims take retribution for apostate Salman Rushdie's transgression against the holy Koran and the Prophet Mohammad," the Guards said in a statement.