TEHRAN: Iranian ultra-conservative newspaper Kayhan on Saturday praised the man who stabbed British author Salman Rushdie - the target of a 1989 Iranian fatwa calling for his death.
Rushdie was on a ventilator after the attack during a literary event in New York State on Friday, more than 30 years after he went into hiding after the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's fatwa.
The paper wrote a tribute to this courageous and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and depraved Salman Rushdie in New York, whose chief is appointed by current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The daily added, Let us kiss the hands of the one who tore the neck of the enemy of God with a knife.
With the exception of reformist publication Etemad, Iranian media followed a similar line, describing Rushdie as an apostate State-owned paper Iran said that the neck of the devil had been cut by a razor Iranian authorities have yet to make any official comment on the stabbing attack against Rushdie.