Salman Rushdie stabbing case: Attacker ‘shocked’, writer survives

Matar said he had decided to see Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institute after a tweet last winter about the author’s planned appearance.

“I don’t like that person. I don’t think he’s a very nice person. He’s someone who attacked Islam. He attacked their beliefs, belief systems,” New York Post Matar said.

Read also: British author Salman Rushdie was stabbed: A look at ‘fatwa’, attacks and controversy

Although the 24-year-old alleged attacker considered the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini “a great man”, he did not say that he was following a fatwa, or fatwa, issued by Khomeini in Iran in 1989. Iranian leader called for Rushdie’s death after author published ‘The Satanic Verses’.

Matar, who lives in Fairview, New Jersey, revealed he had no contact with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and had only read “a couple pages” of The Satanic Verses.

Meanwhile, Iran denied involvement in the attack by British author Salman Rushdie.

Following the attack on August 12, Rushdie had his liver damaged and nerves in an arm and an eye broken. His agent, Andrew Wyllie, said Rushdie’s condition had improved.

Read also: Salman Rushdie attacker’s mother alludes to radicalism, blames son’s trip to the Middle East

Detailing the attack, Matar said he took a bus to Buffalo the day before the attack and then took a lift to Chautauqua, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) away.

He bought a pass to the Chautauqua Institution Ground and then slept in the grass the night before Rushdie’s planned talks.

Matar – born in the US – holds dual citizenship in Lebanon, where his parents were born. His mother confirmed that the pea changed after a trip to Lebanon in 2018, when he went to see his father. Since then he got separated from his family.

With PTI input.

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