Man charged with attempted murder after Rushdie attack
A MAN suspected of stabbing Sir Salman Rushdie has been charged with attempted murder and assault and has been remanded in custody without bail.
New York state police said that 24-year-old Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, was being detained at Chautauqua County Jail.
The 75-year-old Indian-born British author is on a ventilator and may lose an eye and has sustained nerve damage to his arm and damage to his liver following the attack on Friday, his agent has said.
Sir Salman, 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. He was stabbed at least once in the neck and once in the abdomen, before he was taken to hospital.
Sir Salman’s agent Andrew Wylie said he is on a ventilator and unable to speak. Mr Wylie added the news was “not good” and the author will “likely lose one eye”.
He said the nerves in Sir Salman’s arm were severed in the attack and his liver was “stabbed and damaged”.
Major Eugene Staniszweski of New York state police said late on Friday: “Earlier today at approximately 10.47am, guest speaker Salman Rushdie, aged 75, and Ralph Henry Reese, age 73, had just arrived on stage at the institution.
“Shortly thereafter, the suspect jumped on to the stage and attacked Mr Rushdie, stabbing him at least once in the neck and at least once in the abdomen. Several members of staff and audience members rushed the suspect and took him to the ground, and shortly thereafter, a trooper who was at the institution took the suspect into custody with the assistance of a Chautauqua county sheriff’s deputy.
“Mr Rushdie was provided medical treatment by a doctor who was in the audience until EMS arrived on scene.”
The Satanic Verses has been banned in Iran since 1988, as many Muslims view it as blasphemous, and its publication prompted Iran’s then-leader Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa calling for his death.
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”, while JK Rowling and Stephen King were among the authors to wish Sir Salman well and express horror at the attack.
Sir Salman lived in hiding for many years in London under a British government protection programme after Ayatollah Khomeini issued the fatwa.
JK ROWLING yesterday said the police are involved after she received a death threat on Twitter following the horrifying attack on novelist Sir Salman Rushdie.
The Harry Potter author, who is based in Scotland, shared screenshots to the social media platform, showing the threatening message from an Iran-supporting Islamist extremist who appears to have praised Sir Salman’s attacker and branded Israel, India and Ukraine “terrorist states”.
The tweeter, Meer Asif Aziz, who had described Rushdie’s alleged attacker Hadi Matar, 24, as a “revolutionary Shia fighter”, then threatened Ms Rowling: “Don’t worry you are next.”
It came after she earlier wrote on the platform that she felt “very sick” after hearing of the attack and hoped the novelist would “be OK”.
The 57-year-old raised concerns online, tagging Twitter’s support account in her own post and said: “Any chance of some support?” She later updated her followers on the situation saying: “To all sending supportive messages: thank you. Police are involved (were already involved on other threats).”
And when one Twitter user dismissed her concerns and told her to “get off SM (social media) and get on with your life”, she sarcastically replied: “Good to know you’re confident that the worst I’ve had are Twitter threats ... that’s a great comfort to me. And such a simple solution! I’ll inform the relevant authorities you’ve fixed the problem.”
Ms Rowling is among the authors and notable faces who have voiced their disbelief and concern after Sir Salman was stabbed on stage in New York state on Friday.
The Indian-born British author, 75, whose writing led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution when the incident occurred, leaving him with an apparent stab wound to the neck.
On Friday, Ms Rowling received another tweet from a now-deleted account that also said “You’re next” in response to her support for Sir Salman.
Aziz, who describes himself on his Twitter profile as a “student, social activist, political activist and research activist” based in Karachi, appears to support the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Replying to a tweet from the Iranian dictator, Aziz wrote: “Dear leader your struggle for Islamic world will not be wasted until we young generation are with you.”
Free speech campaigner Ms Rowling has been the focus of ongoing threats and “cancellation” attepts due to her beliefs on gender.
The mother of three first came under fire in 2019 for announcing her support for a researcher who lost her job for tweeting “men cannot change into women”, and then commenting on an article that said “people who menstruate”, by saying: “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people…”
To mark the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter film, stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint reunited for a special TV show, Return to Hogwarts, but Ms Rowling was left out.
She has been targeted by “hundreds of trans activists”, with one Twitter user saying they wished to put a “very nice pipe bomb in her mailbox”.
In January, Police Scotland said a tweet posted by trans activists targeting the author would not be treated as criminal.
Ms Rowling contacted police after campaigners posted a photograph of her capital house in November that revealed its address. It included trans activists standing by the house and carrying placards with slogans such as “trans liberation now”. She said the photo made her a victim of “doxxing” – the act of publishing private personal information about an individual or organisation.