Rushdie attack suspect pleads not guilty in court

ERIE: The man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie at a literary event pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges on Saturday, as the severely injured author appeared to show signs of improvement in hospital.

Hadi Matar, 24, was arraigned in court in New York state, with prosecutors outlining how Rushdie had been stabbed approximately 10 times in what they described as a planned, premeditated assault.

After the on-stage attack on Friday, Rushdie had been sent to hospital and underwent emergency surgery.

His agent Andrew Wylie had said the writer was on a ventilator and in danger of losing an eye, but in an update on Saturday he told the New York Times that Rushdie had started to talk again, suggesting his condition had improved.

Author of The Satanic Verses and Midnight’s Children, Rushdie had lived in hiding for years after Iran’s first supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered his killing.

And while the stabbing triggered outrage, it also drew applause from Islamist hardliners in Iran and Pakistan.

US President Joe Biden on Saturday called it a “vicious” attack and offered prayers for Rushdie’s recovery.

“Salman Rushdie — with his insight into humanity, with his unmatched sense for story, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced — stands for essential, universal ideals. Truth. Courage. Resilience,” he said in a statement.

Mr Matar is being held without bail and has been formally charged with second-degree attempted murder and assault with a weapon. Police did not provide his background information. The 75-year-old novelist had been living under an effective death sentence since 1989 when Khomeini issued a decree ordering Muslims to kill the writer.

It followed the publication of the The Satanic Verses, which enraged those who said it was blasphemous for its portrayal of Islam.

In a recent interview with Germany’s Stern, Rushdie spoke of how, after so many years living with death threats, his life was “getting back to normal”.

“For whatever it was, eight or nine years, it was quite serious,” he told Stern. “But ever since I’ve been living in America [...] really there hasn’t been a problem in all that time.”

Rushdie moved to New York in the early 2000s and became a US citizen in 2016. Despite the continued threat to his life, he was increasingly seen in public — often without noticeable security.