Salman Rushdie Attacker Arrested for Attempted Murder, Assault

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The man who attacked famed author Salman Rushdie in New York state has been arrested for a second degree attempted murder and assault, the police said.

"On August 12, 2022, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation arrested Hadi Matar, 24 of Fairview, NJ for Attempted Murder 2nd degree (B Felony) and Assault 2nd degree. Matar was … transported to Chautauqua County Jail. Matar was arraigned in centralized arraignment on August 13, 2022 and remanded without bail to the Chautauqua County Jail," the police said in a statement.

On Friday, Rushdie was stabbed twice as he was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York. Rushdie's agent Andrew Wylie told the New York Times that the author was on ventilator, his liver was damaged and he would likely lose one eye.

NBC News reported, citing a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation, that the preliminary review of Matar's social media showed that he sympathized with Shia extremism and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). At the same time, the source said that there were no “definitive links” to the IRGC.

Rushdie is a celebrated India-born British-American author and winner of numerous literary prizes. In 1989, Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran at the time, issued an edict calling for the killing of Rushdie, whose book "The Satanic Verses" is considered by many Muslims to be blasphemous.