Iran cleric says fatwa against Rushdie "still alive"

TEHRAN, June 22 (Reuters) A prominent Iranian cleric said today the fatwa death warrant against author Salman Rushdie issued by the late Iranian Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini in 1989 was ''still alive'' in the Islamic Republic.

The comments by Ahmad Khatami at Friday prayers broadcast on state radio were the latest sign of the anger in Iran sparked by Britain's decision to award a knighthood to Rushdie.

Muslims say his novel ''The Satanic Verses'' blasphemed against the Prophet Mohammad and ridiculed the Koran.

''In the Islamic Iran that revolutionary fatwa of Imam (Khomeini) is still alive and cannot be changed,'' Khatami, who often rails against the West, told worshippers in Tehran.

In 1998, Iran's government formally distanced itself from the death warrant, but hardline groups in Iran regularly renew the call for his murder, saying Khomeini's fatwa is irrevocable.

REUTERS SKB BD1623