The man arrested for the attack this Friday on British writer Salman Rushdie is called Hadi Matar.
The suspect is 24 years old and lives in the city of Fairviewin New Jersey, reported the spokesman for the New York State Police, Eugene J. Staniszewski, at a press conference hours after the attack.
Matar had a pass to attend a lecture Rushdie, 75, was giving at the Chautauqua Institution in northwestern New York state, a police spokesman said.
Staniszewski said that when the writer and host of the event were on stage, the man climbed onto the stage and stabbed Rushdie at least once in the neck and one in the abdomen, slightly injuring the moderator, Henry Reese.
After hours of surgery, Rushdie remains attached to a ventilator providing assisted breathing.
“The news is not good. Salman will likely lose an eye, the nerves in his arm were severed and his liver was stabbed and damaged,” reported Andrew Wylie, his book agent.
According to the story of the police spokesman, the staff of the organization of the event and members of the audience jumped on the assailant and knocked him down. He was subsequently arrested.
Rushdie was initially treated by a doctor who was in the audience, as was Reese, who suffered facial injuries but has since been released.
Staniszewski said that the police have “no indication of the motive” for the assault.
In reference to the attack against the British writer, the governor of the state of New York, Kathy Hochul, assured that “a state police officer stood up and saved his life, protected him and the moderator.”
A witness who was in the audience told the American newspaper The New York Times that he saw a tall, thin man jump onstage and punch Rushdie three or four times in the face, and then he saw the blood: “He was covered in blood, and there was blood spilling all over the floor. Blood covered his eyes and cheeks.
A writer identified as Carl LeVan, who was also attending the event, wrote on his Twitter account that Rushdie “was stabbed multiple times before the attacker was subdued by security.”
Several attendees indicated that there were no baggage checks, metal detectors or other security measures at the entrance of the event.
The writer was flown to Pennsylvania’s Eire Hospital by helicopter.
The fatwa and the secrecy
Rushdie, who has lived in the United States since 2000, was scheduled to participate in a conference organized by the City of Asylum organization to speak precisely about “his experience as an artist in exile in the United States.” with Henry Reese, president of the organization.
Rushdie’s lecture was entitled “More Than Shelter” and was to deal with the character of the United States “as a land of asylum and a home for free creative expression.”
In 1989, Rushdie received a death threat through a fatwa (a legal pronouncement in Islam) issued by the then Ayatollah of Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini, for his novel The Satanic Verses.
The work was considered blasphemous by Muslims, and large sums of money were offered to whoever killed the writer.
Rushdie was forced to live in hiding for several years.
This death threat caused the rupture of relations between the United Kingdom and Iran for more than a decade.
So far, the Iranian government has remained silent on the attack.
However, the main official agency, IRNA, published on its service in English: «Salman Rushdie, the apostate author of the Satanic Verses, has been attacked in New York (…) Rushdie is the author of ‘The Satanic Verses’, a blasphemous novel on Islam published in 1988 that aroused the ire of Muslims, culminating in a fatwa by Imam Khomeini calling for Rushdie’s death.”