Lhe trial has just opened before the American courts. The assailant of Salman Rushdie, a young American of Lebanese origin, was brought before a New York State judge before whom he pleaded “not guilty” to “attempted murder” of the writer, still hospitalized in serious condition but who was able to say a few words on Saturday evening.
Threatened with death since a “fatwa” from Iran in 1989, a year following the publication of the “Satanic Verses”, Salman Rushdie was stabbed a dozen times on Friday, an attack which outrages in the West but which is hailed by extremists in Iran and Pakistan.
During a procedural hearing at the Chautauqua court, Hadi Matar, 24, charged with “attempted murder and assault”, appeared in a black and white striped prison uniform, handcuffed and masked, and did not say a word. word, according to the New York Times (NYT) and local press photos.
As a reminder, this Friday, August 12 around 11:00 a.m. (3:00 p.m. GMT) on the stage of the amphitheater of the Chautauqua cultural center, a man “rushed to the stage” and has “stabbed” Rushdie multiple times “in the neck” “in the abdomen”according to the New York State Police.
“Salman will probably lose an eye; the nerves in his arm were severed and he was stabbed in the liver.”had detailed Wylie, specifying that his client had been placed on an artificial respirator.
Salman Rushdie, born in 1947 in India into a family of non-practicing Muslim intellectuals, set part of the Islamic world ablaze with the publication of the “Satanic Verses”, leading Iranian Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa in 1989 calling for his assassination. .
The author of fifteen novels, stories for young people, short stories and essays written in English had therefore been forced to live in hiding and under police protection, going from cache to cache.
(With AFP)
