USA: Salman Rushdie attack suspect survives surprisingly

The American accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie said in an interview Wednesday that the “Satanic Versus” author survived Friday’s attack at a conference in New York state. “When I heard that he survived, I was surprised,” Hadi Mather told the “New York Post,” referring to contacting him in prison.

The suspect, who was arrested immediately after the attack, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder on Saturday and is due back in court on Friday. Salman Mather, 24, did not say whether he was inspired by a 1989 fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini from Iran.

“I have respect for the Ayatollah. I think he is a remarkable person. That’s all I’ll say about it,” he assured the New York tabloid, which writes that Salman Mather’s lawyers have advised him not to talk about the matter. Hadi Mather told the newspaper that she had read “a few pages” of Salman Rushdie’s novel.

The 75-year-old British author was stabbed a dozen times and airlifted to hospital, briefly put on a ventilator before his condition improved. “The road to recovery has begun,” his agent said on Sunday.

“I don’t like this guy. I don’t think he’s a good person,” the suspect told the New York Post about the intellectual. “I don’t like him, I don’t like him.” He was someone who attacked Islam. Watching the teacher’s videos on YouTube, he found it “hypocritical,” He continued.

He said he was not in touch with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and learned via Twitter that Salman Rushdie was at a conference at a cultural center in Chautauqua, upstate New York.

Originally from New Jersey, he told US media that he took a bus to downtown Buffalo, then Lyft – a rival to Uber and taxis – to get to Chautauqua. “I didn’t do anything in particular, hang around,” he said, “I was outside all the time.”

When Salman Rushdie took the stage in an amphitheater, a man rushed to the stage and stabbed him several times, including in the neck and stomach. Hadi Mather had “changed” and become more religious since a 2018 trip to her family’s native Lebanon, her mother told the Daily Mail website on Monday.