British Publisher Wants to Help Khomeini Repent

LONDON — Newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell has pledged $10.6 million to anyone who can “civilize” Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, one of his newspapers announced Sunday.

The People, a London weekly tabloid, said the money would be paid to anyone who can persuade Iran’s supreme leader to repent “his wicked ways” by persuading him to publicly recite the sixth and ninth of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shall not bear false witness.”

Maxwell’s offer doubles the price put on the head of British writer Salman Rushdie by Iranian religious leaders enraged by his book, “The Satanic Verses.”