Author is ‘defiant’ after knife horror

Sir Salman Rushdie suffered severe lifechanging injuries but his “usual feisty and defiant sense of humour remains intact”, his family has said.

The author, 75, has a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye after he was stabbed at a lecture in New York on Friday.

In a statement, his son Zafar said the family was “relieved” he was taken off a ventilator on Saturday.

He said: “Following the attack on Friday, my father remains in a critical condition in hospital receiving extensive ongoing medical treatment.

“We are extremely relieved that he was taken off the ventilator and additional oxygen and he was able to say a few words.

“Though his lifechanging injuries are severe, his usual feisty and defiant sense of humour remains intact.

“We are so grateful to all the audience members who bravely leapt to his defence and administered first aid along with the police and doctors who have cared for him and for the outpouring of love and support from around the world.

“We ask for continued patience and privacy as the family come together at his bedside to support and help him through this time.”

In an update on his condition yesterday, his literary agent, Andrew Wylie, said: “He’s off the ventilator, so the road to recovery has begun.

“It will be long, the injuries are severe, but his condition is headed in the right direction.”

The Indian-born Briton, whose novel The Satanic Verses led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution, 65 miles from Buffalo in New York state, when he was attacked.

The man accused of stabbing him pleaded not guilty on Saturday to charges of attempted murder and assault, in what a prosecutor called a “pre-planned” crime.

A lawyer for Hadi Matar, 24, entered the plea on his behalf during a formal hearing at a court in western New York.

Matar appeared in court wearing a black and white jumpsuit and a white face mask, with his hands cuffed in front of him.

A judge ordered him to be held without bail after district attorney Jason Schmidt told her Matar took steps to purposely put himself in a position to harm Sir Salman, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early with a fake ID.

“This was a targeted, unprovoked, pre-planned attack on Mr Rushdie,” Mr Schmidt said.

Public defender Nathaniel Barone said the authorities had taken too long to get Matar in front of a judge, while leaving him “hooked up to a bench at the state police barracks”.

Sir Salman was stabbed at least once in the neck and once in the abdomen, according to police, before he was taken to hospital.

His publisher Penguin Random House said they were “deeply shocked and appalled” by the incident.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “appalled that Sir Salman Rushdie has been stabbed while exercising a right we should never cease to defend”.

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “Salman Rushdie has long embodied the struggle for liberty and freedom against those who seek to destroy them.”

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said: “The country and the world witnessed a reprehensible attack against the writer Salman Rushdie.

“This act of violence is appalling.”

PUBLIC LIFE: The Iranian government had withdrawn its support for the death sentence on Sir Salman Rushdie.