The family of the 75-year-old author, who has lived for decades under threat because of his writing, said he was in critical condition on Sunday after the attack on stage, which ended with the attacker being held by staff and guests and Rushdie is taken to a hospital.
“Although his life-changing injuries are serious, his usual combative and defiant sense of humor remains intact,” his son Zafar Rushdie said in a statement on Sunday.
Rushdie was taken off a ventilator over the weekend but was still being treated for injuries including three stab wounds to the neck, four stab wounds to the stomach, stab wounds to the eye and right breast and a laceration to the right thigh, Chautauqua. County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said Saturday, adding that the perpetrator could end up losing his right eye.
The suspect, identified as Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, was arrested by a state trooper after the attack and taken into custody.
Authorities are now investigating what prompted the stabbing, which has prompted the state to increase the police presence in Chautauqua, New York State Police Superintendent Kevin P. Bruen said.
What we know about the “targeted, pre-planned” attack.
Rushdie was being introduced to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution on Friday when a man rushed the stage and stabbed the author in several places in front of a stunned audience.
Staff members and guests took the stage and restrained the assailant before a state trooper assigned to the event took him into custody, according to New York State Police.
Also injured in the attack was Ralph Henry Reese, another speaker at the event who suffered a minor head injury.
“It was very difficult to understand. It seemed like some kind of bad joke, and it didn’t have any sense of reality,” Ralph Henry Reese told CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” “And then when there was blood behind it, it became real.”
One witness, Joyce Lussier, was sitting in the second row when she saw the attack unfold. He heard people screaming and crying, he told CNN, and saw people in the audience coming up on stage.
The suspect, Matar, had arrived in Chautauqua at least a day before the event and bought a pass to the event two days earlier, authorities said.
Schmidt called the stabbing a “targeted, planned and unprovoked attack on Mr. Rushdie,” saying Matar traveled to Chautauqua by bus with cash, prepaid Visa cards and false identification.
The felony complaint against Matar indicated that a knife was used in the stabbing.
It is still unclear how the suspect could have entered the scene armed with a knife. A witness, however, told CNN that there were no security searches or metal detectors at the event. The witness is not being identified because he expressed concern for his personal safety.
The institution’s president, Michael Hill, defended his organization’s security plans when asked during a press conference on Friday if there would be more precautions at future events.
“We evaluate for each event what we think is the appropriate level of security, and certainly that was what we thought was important, which is why we had a state police and sheriff presence,” Hill said .
On Sunday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul met with Chautauqua Institute scene crews and police who helped subdue Rushdie’s alleged attacker, calling them heroes.
“The crew that was on the ground here and the EMTs and the firefighters and those who showed up and literally kept the man alive as they transported him, they did an extraordinary job,” the governor said.
The suspect, described as a “quiet” man from New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty
Matar, who authorities say has no documented criminal history, pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted second-degree murder and second-degree assault with intent to inflict bodily injury with a deadly weapon, the his public defender, Nathaniel Barone. .
The attorney said Matar has been “very cooperative” and has communicated openly, but would not discuss what was said during those conversations.
He faces up to 32 years if convicted of both charges, Schmidt said.
Matar was described as a quiet person who kept to herself.
The suspect had signed up at the State of Fitness Boxing Club in North Bergen, New Jersey, in April, gym owner Desmond Boyle told CNN.
“You know that look, that ‘it’s the worst day of your life’? He came in every day like that,” Boyle told CNN on Saturday.
A member of the gym, Roberto Irizarry, told CNN that Matar attended the gym about three or four times a week and was “a very quiet kid.”
“It’s a brotherly, family environment; we try to get everyone involved. He was for himself, pretty much,” Irizarry said.
Rushdie receives huge support as he begins ‘road to recovery’
The attack on the prominent author generated a great deal of support from leaders around the world.
US President Joe Biden said in a statement that he was saddened by the attack.
“Salman Rushdie, with his vision of humanity, with his unparalleled sense of history, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced, represents essential and universal ideals. Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear . These are the building blocks of any free and open society,” Biden said.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a tweet that he was “horrified” by the attack on Rushdie, who is also a British citizen.
“Appalled that Sir Salman Rushdie has been stabbed while exercising a right that we should never stop defending. My thoughts are with his loved ones right now. We all hope he is well,” Johnson said on Friday.
Rushdie’s former wife, TV presenter Padma Lakshmi, said in a tweet on Sunday that she was “relieved” that Rushdie was “moving on after Friday’s nightmare”.
“Worried and speechless, she can finally exhale. Now she hopes for a speedy recovery,” she said.
Suzanne Nossel, CEO of the nonprofit PEN America, said in a statement:
“PEN America is reeling from the shock and horror at word of a brutal and premeditated attack on our former president and staunch ally, Salman Rushdie, who was reportedly stabbed multiple times while speaking at the Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York,” Nossel said. said “We can think of no comparable incident of a public attack on a literary writer on American soil.”
“Salman Rushdie has been the target of his words for decades, but he has never wavered or wavered,” Nossel added. “He has devoted tireless energy to helping others who are vulnerable and threatened.”
Rushdie’s writings have earned him several literary awards, but also scrutiny. His fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses,” drew condemnation from some Muslims who found the book sacrilegious.
The late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who described the book as an insult to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, issued a religious decree, or fatwa, calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989.
As a result, Rushdie began a decade under British protection.
In its first official reaction, Iran blamed the author and “his supporters” for the attack on Rushdie.
“On the attack on Salman Rushdie, we consider no one but [Rushdie] and its supporters are worth blaming and even condemning,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani told a televised news conference on Monday.
Kanaani also said Iranian officials “categorically and seriously deny any connection of the attacker to Iran,” according to Iranian state media.
“We have not seen anything else about the individual who carried out this act other than what we have seen in the US media. We categorically and seriously deny any connection of the attacker to Iran,” Kanaani said according to Iranian state media.
Although the motive for Friday’s stabbing remains under investigation, New York’s governor condemned the attack.
“I want a man with a knife to not be able to silence a man with a pen,” Hochul said.
CNN’s Artemis Moshtaghian, Liam Reilly, Samantha Beech, Keith Allen, Adam Pourahmadi, Alex Stambaugh and Brian Stelter contributed to this report.