After author Salman Rushdie was stabbed Friday at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, state and federal investigators sought to determine the suspect’s motivation, plans, communications and movements as Mr. Rushdie was in a precarious condition Saturday. wrong.
mr. Rushdie, who had spent decades under Iran’s ban, was on a ventilator after hours of surgery and unable to speak, Andrew Wylie, his agent, said in an email Friday night.
A video on TikTok that was subsequently deleted showed the chaotic scene on Friday, just after the attacker jumped onstage in the normally quiet center for intellectual discourse. Mr Rushdie, who lived relatively openly after years of semi-clandestine existence, had just sat down to give a lecture when a man attacked him.
A crowd of people immediately rushed to the place where the author lay on the podium to offer help. Stunned spectators could be seen throughout the amphitheater. While some screamed, others got up and walked slowly to the podium. People began to gather in the aisles. Someone could be heard shouting “Oh my God” repeatedly.
A deputy sheriff and another law enforcement officer with a dog arrived on the scene about a minute later.
Rushdie was stabbed at least once in the neck and at least once in the abdomen, police said. Mr Wylie said Friday the author’s condition was “not good”. Mr Rushdie could lose an eye, his liver was damaged and the nerves in his arm were severed, he said.
Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old man from New Jersey, was arrested at the scene. New York State Police said at a news conference Friday afternoon that there was no evidence of Mr. Matar’s motive, but that they were working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI agents visited Mr. Matar’s home later in the day.
State police did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday morning. A spokeswoman for UPMC Hamot in Erie, Pennsylvania, where Mr Rushdie is being treated, said the hospital is not providing information about the patient’s condition. Attempts to reach Mr. Wylie were unsuccessful.
Rushdie had been under threat of an assassination attempt since 1989, about six months after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses. The book fictionalized parts of the prophet Muhammad’s life with images that offended some Muslims, who believed the novel was blasphemous. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led Iran after the 1979 revolution, issued an edict known as a fatwa on February 14, 1989. It ordered Muslims to kill Mr Rushdie.
In 1991, the Japanese translator of the novel was stabbed to death and the Italian translator was seriously injured. The Norwegian publisher of the novel was shot three times outside his Oslo home in 1993 and was seriously injured.
Elizabeth Harriso reporting contributed.