Rushie Must Die, Iran’s Chief Repeats : Threat: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says the death order ‘is still valid and must be implemented.’

NICOSIA, Cyprus —  The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s order calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie must be carried out, Iran’s spiritual leader said today.

In London, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher condemned today’s sermon by the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and said it was “much to be regretted.” In a related development, nine Iranians deported from Britain arrived in Tehran.

Khamenei, Khomeini’s successor, said Khomeini’s fatwa, or religious decree, “about the writer of the blasphemous book, ‘The Satanic Verses,’ is still valid and must be implemented,” according to a Tehran radio broadcast monitored in Nicosia.

Rushdie, an Indian-born British author, has been in hiding in Britain since Khomeini issued the decree Feb. 14, 1989. Muslim fundamentalists consider his 1988 book blasphemous for its irreverent treatment of the Prophet Mohammed, Islam’s founder, although many censors admitted not having read it.

Rushdie said this week that he considered appearing in public to deliver a lecture on censorship but that he had been dissuaded by his police guards. He also said he regrets the pain the book has caused but said he stands by his work.

He said he is pressing for a paperback edition. Viking Penguin, Rushdie’s publishers, has said no decision has been made about a paperback edition.

Blake Morrison, literary editor of The Independent on Sunday and a friend of Rushdie, called Khamenei’s statements “disappointing news in a week when he (Rushdie) has made a real effort to reopen the debate in a more peaceful way.”

“Obviously it was perhaps too much to hope that a conciliatory tone adopted here would filter through to Tehran,” Morrison told BBC radio.

The international controversy over the book increased last year when Khomeini issued the death decree and several Iranian leaders put a $5.2-million bounty on Rushdie’s head.

Britain, along with about 12 Western allies, recalled their ambassadors from Tehran to protest the fatwa. The European allies resumed ties with Iran, but Tehran severed relations with London, accusing it of trying to pressure Khomeini to revoke the death decree.

In Tehran today, an Iranian TV journalist deported along with an Iran Air official and seven students said it was no coincidence that their expulsions came near the anniversary of Khomeini’s death decree.

The London bureau chief of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, identified only as Keivanara, told Tehran radio, “The expulsion of the students was a political action taken on the anniversary of the death order against Salman Rushdie.”

Britain announced Feb. 1 that the nine had to be out within a week for reasons of national security. It did not elaborate, but similar expulsions in the past have been linked to the Rushdie death decree.