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MAYVILLE — A Last Week A man suspected of stabbing novelist Salman Rushdie in western New York will be arraigned on a grand jury indictment during a court hearing on Thursday, his attorney said.
Hadi Matar, 24, is accused of injuring 75-year-old Rushdie on Friday just before the author of "The Satanic Verse" lectured onstage at an educational retreat near Lake Erie. accused.
Suspect is scheduled to appear in court at 1:00 pm. Local time, the office of Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said in an email.
He said he had charged a person with one count of attempted second-degree murder and one count of second-degree assault.
Schmidt's office said a grand jury returned the indictment Thursday morning, but did not provide further details.
The suspect appeared in county court on Saturday and pleaded not guilty to his one count of attempted second-degree murder and an additional count of second-degree assault after prosecutors filed a criminal complaint. did.
He was remanded without bail.
The attack was the result of Iran's then-supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa, or edict, calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie in the year following the publication of the Satanic Verse. It happened 33 years after he started.
The Indian-born writer has since read a book that some Muslims say contains blasphemous passages about Islam and put a bounty on their heads.
In 1998, President Mohammad Khatami's pro-reform government of Iran distanced itself from Fatwa and said the threat to Rushdie, who had lived in hiding for nine years, was over. But in 2019, Twitter suspended Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's account, citing a tweet that said the fatwa against Rushdie was "irrevocable."
Political leaders, including the US and UK, called last week's attack an attack on free speech.
In an interview published in the New York Post on Wednesday, Matar said he admired Ayatollah Khomeini but did not say whether he was inspired by the fatwa. and said he had seen the author's YouTube video.
"I don't really like him," Matar said of Rushdie. "He is the one who attacked Islam. He attacked their beliefs, their belief systems." said. Police say Matar is believed to have acted alone and his motives are unknown.
His attorney, Nathaniel Barrone, said he was not informed of the Post's interview and did not allow him to speak to outside sources.
} Matar of Lebanese descent is a Shiite Muslim American born in California.
According to the New York Times, prosecutors said he bussed to Chautauqua Institute, about 12 miles (19 km) from Lake Erie, where he purchased a pass to Rushdie's lectures. Says.
Witnesses said there were no obvious security checks at the lecture venue and that Matar attacked the author so he did not speak. He was arrested at the scene by state police after being knocked to the ground by an audience member.
Rushdie was severely injured in the attack and likely suffered nerve damage in his arm, liver damage and the loss of an eye, his agent said. (Reporting by Tyler Clifford of Mayville, NY; additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien of his of Chicago; Editing by Frank McGurty and Bernadette Baum)
