Rushdie Attack Recalls 1991 Killing of His Japanese Translator

TOKYO — The assault on Salman Rushdie in western New York State on Friday prompted renewed curiosity in earlier assaults on folks related to his 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses,” together with its Japanese translator, who was killed in 1991.

The translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed to demise at age 44 that July at Tsukuba College, northeast of Tokyo, the place he had been instructing comparative Islamic tradition for 5 years. No arrests had been ever made, and the crime stays unsolved.

Mr. Igarashi had translated “The Satanic Verses” for a Japanese version that was revealed after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then the supreme chief of Iran, had ordered Muslims to kill the Indian-born British author over the e book’s depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

Mr. Rushdie, 75, who went into surgical procedure on Friday after being stabbed by an attacker in Chautauqua, N.Y., had mentioned in 1991 that information of Mr. Igarashi’s demise had left him feeling “extraordinarily distressed.”

The police in Japan mentioned on the time that they’d no particular proof linking the assault to “The Satanic Verses.” However information studies mentioned that the novel’s Japanese writer had obtained demise threats from Islamist militants, and that Mr. Igarashi had for a time been protected by bodyguards.

The publishing home, Shinsensha, had additionally confronted protests at its Tokyo workplace in 1990, and a Pakistani citizen was arrested that yr for making an attempt to assault a promoter of the e book at a information convention.

Mr. Igarashi was killed as he left his workplace at Tsukuba College after a day of instructing. His son, Ataru Igarashi, advised a reporter years later that he had been engaged on translating “The Canon of Drugs,” a medieval medical textbook by the Islamic doctor and thinker Ibn Sina.

The police mentioned {that a} janitor had discovered Mr. Igarashi’s physique close to an elevator with slash wounds on his neck, face and fingers. A brown leather-based bag that Mr. Igarashi had been carrying was lined in slash marks, suggesting that he had tried to defend himself through the assault, the Shukan Asahi journal reported.

He was survived by his spouse, Masako Igarashi, and their two kids.

Hypothesis concerning the killing circulated within the Japanese information media for years. Probably the most distinguished idea, reported in 1998 by the journal Day by day Shincho, was that investigators had briefly recognized a Bangladeshi pupil at Tsukuba College as a suspect, however that they’d stood down amid strain from prime officers, who nervous concerning the potential implications for Japan’s relations with Islamic nations. No stable proof of that idea ever emerged.

Mr. Igarashi often is the solely particular person to be killed due to their work with Mr. Rushdie. A number of others survived makes an attempt on their lives, together with Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator of “The Satanic Verses,” who was stabbed in his residence in Milan days earlier than the assault on Mr. Igarashi.

In July 1993, the Turkish novelist Aziz Nesin, who had revealed a translated excerpt from “The Satanic Verses” in a neighborhood newspaper, narrowly escaped demise when a crowd of militants burned down a resort in japanese Turkey the place he was staying in an try and kill him.

Mr. Nesin, who was then 78, escaped the constructing by way of a firefighters’ ladder. However 37 others — intellectuals who had gathered on the resort to debate methods of selling secularism — died within the blaze. A Turkish courtroom later sentenced 33 folks to demise for his or her roles within the assault.

In October 1993, the Norwegian writer of “The Satanic Verses,” William Nygaard, was shot thrice exterior his house in Oslo. He made a full restoration and went on to reprint the e book in defiance.

In 2018, the Norwegian police filed prices within the case two days earlier than a deadline that may have foreclosed prosecution. They declined to call the suspects or specify what number of had been charged.

The shortage of progress within the case has introduced sharp criticism of the police investigation, which targeted principally on private motives, relatively than political or spiritual ones, in response to a 2008 documentary by Odd Isungset, a journalist who additionally wrote a e book concerning the assault.

In response to Norway’s state broadcaster, NRK, one of many suspects is a Lebanese citizen, Khaled Moussawi, who had been questioned through the preliminary investigation. Though the Norwegian police have by no means launched that identify, Mr. Moussawi, who returned to Lebanon in 1996, confirmed to NRK that he was a type of charged.

The opposite suspect, in response to reporting by Mr. Isungset and by NRK, is an Iranian diplomat who labored at his nation’s embassy in Oslo from 1989 to 1993, when he left Norway.

Halvard Helle, a lawyer for Mr. Nygaard, mentioned in an interview that two folks had been charged within the case, together with an Iranian former diplomat. He known as for the police to challenge worldwide arrest warrants for the suspects.

Mr. Isungset expressed doubt that the case would attain a conclusion. “Sadly, I don’t suppose this matter will ever go to courtroom in Norway,” he mentioned.

As for Mr. Igarashi’s killing, the statute of limitations within the case expired in 2006, producing a basic sense of disappointment that there can be no closure — or reflection on what the homicide meant for the nation.

“If a perpetrator had been caught, then maybe that may have spurred a dialogue on freedom of faith and speech,” mentioned Sachi Sakanashi, a researcher on the Institute of Vitality Economics in Tokyo who focuses on Iranian politics. “Nevertheless, that didn’t occur.”

In 2009, the professor’s widow, Masako Igarashi, picked up his pockets, glasses and different possessions from a police station the place they’d lengthy been held as proof, the Shukan Asahi journal reported.

However final yr, police officers advised the Mainichi Shimbun that they had been persevering with to analyze Mr. Igarashi’s killing within the hope that the statute of limitations won’t apply if a perpetrator turned out to have fled the nation.

Ms. Igarashi, a highschool principal and a scholar of comparative Japanese literature, advised the newspaper that she held out hope of discovering justice.

“When instances change,” she advised the Mainichi Shimbun, “the potential of a sudden breakthrough received’t be zero.”

Hikari Hida reported from Tokyo, Mike Ives from Seoul.