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Police Identify Suspect In Attack On Author Salman Rushdie, Say He Acted Alone

August 12, 2022

Police in the U.S. state of New York have identified the man who allegedly attacked author Salman Rushdie on August 12 and say they believe he acted alone.

The suspect, who was taken into custody at the scene, is Hadi Matar, 24, of New Jersey, police said at a news conference. They have yet to determine the charges that will be filed against him.

Authorities also said Rushdie was still in surgery several hours after the attack at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.

Rushdie, who spent years in hiding under death threat from Iran, was stabbed just before he was to deliver a lecture at the institution. There was no indication of any threats prior to the event, police said.

The suspect stormed the stage as Rushdie was being introduced and attacked him and moderator Henry Reese, New York State Police said in a statement.

"Rushdie suffered an apparent stab wound to the neck, and was transported by helicopter to an area hospital. His condition is not yet known," the statement said.

A state trooper who had been assigned to the event immediately took the suspect into custody, the statement added. Reese suffered a minor head injury.

An earlier news report included a video clip showing medics rushing to tend to Rushdie on the floor.

Andrew Wylie, a spokesman for Rushdie, said in a statement that Rushdie was in surgery but provided no further details.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said he was alive and "getting the care he needs."

Rushdie, 75, is the author of The Satanic Verses, a book banned in Iran because many Muslims consider it to be blasphemous. A year after it was published in 1988, Iran's leader at the time, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death.

Iran's government has distanced itself from Khomeini's decree, but anti-Rushdie sentiment has lingered. In 2012, a semiofficial Iranian religious foundation raised the bounty for Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.

Rushdie, who was forced into hiding for many years because of the fatwa, dismissed that threat at the time, saying there was no evidence of people being interested in the reward.

The Swedish institution that awards the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 denounced the fatwa, saying reward money for Rushdie's death was a "flagrant" breach of international law.

Rushdie published a memoir about his life under the fatwa called Joseph Anton, the pseudonym he used while under British police protection. His second novel, Midnight Children, is set during the 1947 partition of India and won the Booker Prize. His new novel, Victory City, is due to be published in February.

Rushdie was at the Chautauqua Institution to take part in a discussion about the United States serving as asylum for writers and artists in exile and "as a home for freedom of creative expression," according to the institution's website.

Rushdie was Born in Mumbai, India, and holds British and U.S. citizenship. He has lived in New York since 2000, according to Politico.

Since dropping his alias and partially coming out of hiding in 2001, Rushdie has been a prominent spokesman for free expression and liberal causes. He is a former president of PEN America, which said it was "reeling from shock and horror" at the attack.

"We can think of no comparable incident of a public violent attack on a literary writer on American soil," CEO Suzanne Nossel said in a statement.

With reporting by AP, Sky News, CBS, and Politico

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/author-salmon-rushdie- attacked-onstage-new-york/31985561.html

Copyright (c) 2022. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.