The authors of the memoir that Salman Rushdie recently claimed was largely fabricated have admitted that a portion of the book was fictitious, the Guardian reported. Rushdie stated earlier this month that he would take legal action if On Her Majesty's Service, the allegedly true story of Ron Evans, who served in Rushdie's police protection unit, coauthored by Douglas Thompson, was released without factual revisions. The book was originally scheduled for release on August 4.
Rushdie's claims of libel came in response to excerpts from On Her Majesty's Service published in the Mail, a U.K. newspaper. Asking that publication of the book be halted unless erroneous material was omitted, Rushdie said that the passages falsely portrayed him and his police guards, issued by Scotland Yard to protect the author after the fatwa was placed on him in 1989.
According to Mark Stephens, Rushdie's lawyer, Evans and Thompson stated yesterday that much of the information in the book was untrue. Stephens also said that Evans was "over-egging" his role in Rushdie's protection. "He was a police driver making out he was an armed special protection office."
The amended book, subtitled My Incredible Life in the World's Most Dangerous Close Protection Squad, is scheduled for release next week by John Blake Publishing.
