Author Salman Rushdie received an apology at London's High Court on Tuesday from a former police officer who libelled him in a book about his time in hiding while under threat from a fatwa.
Rushdie said Ron Evans, an ex-police driver who helped guard him after Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a call for his death over the novel "The Satanic Verses" in 1989, had penned "surrealist untruths" about him.
The false claims made by Evans in the book "On Her Majesty's Service" included that Rushdie had poor personal hygiene and was once locked in a room after irritating officers.
Speaking outside court, Rushdie, 61, told reporters he was "very gratified" by the result.
"This has been an unattractive affair," he said.
"My only interest was to establish the truth. I'm happy that the court has made its declaration of falsity and that the authors and publishers have recognised their falsehoods and apologised."
Evans made an apology through his lawyer for 11 counts of falsehoods. Judge Nigel Teare also made a declaration of falsehood against him, ghost writer Douglas Thompson and publisher John Blake Publishing.
A declaration of falsehood is a legal remedy which formally recognises that an allegation is incorrect.
Indian-born Briton Rushdie, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II last year provoking fury from some Muslims, said he would not seek damages over the book.
After he was knighted, Iran said the fatwa still stood but in recent years, Rushdie has appeared in public increasingly frequently.
In July, his book "Midnight's Children" was named the best-ever winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for novels in English by an author from the Commonwealth and Ireland.
Copyright 2008 AFP Global Edition
