Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man who stabbed Mumbai-born author Salman Rushdie in New York on Friday, has been charged with ‘attempted murder and assault in the second degree’, the Chautauqua Country district attorney’s office said on Saturday.
“The individual responsible for the attack yesterday, Hadi Mattar, has now been formally charged with attempted murder in the second degree and assault in the second degree,” Chautauqua County district attorney Jason Schmidt said in a statement.
“He was arraigned on these charges last night and remanded without bail,” the statement added.
The New York State Police, which is investigating the attack on prior to a speaking event at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, said that on Friday the Bureau of Criminal Investigation arrested Matar of Fairview, New Jersey for “attempted murder 2nd degree and assault 2nd degree”.
Matar was born and raised in the US, the head of the local municipality, Ali Qassem Tahfa, told news agency AFP.
Rushdie remained hospitalised in serious condition. The British author, who spent years under police protection after Iranian leaders ordered his killing, underwent emergency surgery and was placed on a ventilator after Friday’s assault in which Matar rushed the stage where Rushdie was about to deliver a lecture and stabbed him in the neck and abdomen.
According to his agent Andrew Wylie, the nerves in one of Rushdie’s arms were severed and his liver damaged in the attack, and he “will likely lose one eye.”
Rushdie, 75, had been living under an effective death sentence since 1989 when Iran’s then supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a religious decree, or fatwa, ordering Muslims to kill the writer.
The fatwa followed the publication of the novel “The Satanic Verses” which sparked fury among some Muslims who believed it was blasphemous.
(With inputs from agencies)
