WASHINGTON: Law enforcement authorities in New York on Friday identified author Salman Rushdie's assailant as 24-year-old Hadi Matar from New Jersey, believed, on the basis of his social media posts, to be a supporter of fundamentalist forces in Iran which initiated a fatwa on the writer in 1988.
After stabbing, Rushdie was flown to UPMC Hamot Surgery Center in Erie, Pennsylvania and underwent surgery. Andrew Wylie, Rushdie's agent, said the writer was on a ventilator with a damaged liver, severed nerves in an arm and an eye he was likely to lose.
Matar reportedly drove from his home in Fairview, New Jersey to Chautauqua, in Upstate New York, where Rushdie, 75, was a guest speaker at a local literary festival. He was being interviewed by Henry Reese, 73, when Matar, said to be of Lebanese origin, rushed on to the stage to attack him.
