William Nygaard assassination attempt

 William Nygaard assassination attempt 

Date	11 October 1993
Location	Oslo,  Norway
Interests	Salman Rushdie
Description	The attempted murder of the publisher William Nygaard in Oslo on 11 October 1993. Police went to great lengths to let the suspected perpetrator - who may have been a police/intelligence informer - escape the country

The Nygaard case is the attempted murder of the publisher William Nygaard in Oslo on 11 October 1993. Outside his residence in Dagaliveien, Nygaard was hit by three shots from a Dan Wesson revolver. Nygaard barely survived. No one has been arrested for the attempted murder, but it is linked to the fact that Nygaard's publishing house Aschehoug published the controversial book The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

The Oslo police investigated the case, initially intensively for one and a half years, and with an intensive investigation phase also in 1998. The police did not find the perpetrator or persons, and according to journalist Odd Isungset, the Oslo police pressed the District attorney for the case to be dropped. The case was dropped in 2007 on the grounds that the perpetrator was unknown. William Nygaard was not informed of the closure. Odd Isungset made a documentary program in 2008, and the attorney general wanted to look at the case again.

State prosecutor Lasse Qvigstad decided that the investigation should be resumed, and a new investigation was initiated under the auspices of Kripos in 2009, when a review found deficiencies in the original investigation. In connection with a documentary on the case in 2012, state attorney Qvigstad directed strong criticism at the Oslo police's investigation into the assassination attempt. On 9 October 2018, two days before the 25-year statute of limitations, it became known that Kripos had charged several perpetrators with assassination. In November 2021 the two were identified as the Lebanese man Khaled Moussawi and an unnamed former Iranian diplomat.

The fatwa

On 12 April 1989 Aschehoug and William Nygaard were responsible for publishing the Norwegian edition of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. This was two months after Ayatollah Khomeini issued the following fatwa against Salman Rushdie and his publishers:

I inform all zealous Muslims of the world that the author of the book entitled The Satanic Verses — which has been compiled, printed and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an — and all those involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death. I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, wherever they may be found, so that no one else will dare to insult the Muslim sanctities. God Willing, whoever is killed on this path is a martyr.

Owing to the fatwa, direct threats were made against William Nygaard and translator Kari Risvik, and in the resulting controversy, Nygaard was given police protection for a period.

Most people — including Nygaard — link the incident to the fatwa.

The assassination attempt

Nygaard saw that the car was punctured when he was due to drive from home to his workplace in Aschehoug publishing house in the morning. He opened the passenger door to find the phone number to the rescue service. Then he was shot from behind. Nygaard thought he had received an electric shock and moved from the car. He was hit by three shots from a Dan Wesson revolver. One projectile went through the body, the other two remained in the body and had to be operated out. Nygaard did not see the perpetrator, but a dark-skinned man with a hood and an icy gaze was observed by a 17-year-old intern at Nygaard's tenant. The man was also observed by another neighbor and by two schoolchildren passing by. It was only when Nygaard arrived at the hospital that it was discovered that there were gunshot wounds, and then the police were notified.

After several months of hospitalization, Nygaard slowly recovered.

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