The man charged with the US stabbing attack on Salman Rushdie pleaded not guilty on Saturday to attempted murder and assault charges in what a prosecutor called a “planned” crime, as the renowned author of The Satanic Verses remains hospitalized with serious injuries.
A lawyer for Hadi Matar argued on her behalf at a hearing in western New York. The suspect appeared in court wearing a black and white striped jumpsuit and white face mask with his hands cuffed in front of him.
A judge ordered him held without bail after District Attorney Jason Schmidt told him that Matar had taken steps to deliberately put himself in a position to harm Mr. Rushdie, obtaining an advance pass for the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early with a fake ID.
“This was a targeted, unprovoked and planned attack on Mr. Rushdie,” prosecutor Schmidt said.
Citizens’ rights advocate Nathaniel Barone complained that authorities took too long to bring Matar before a judge while leaving him “hanging on a bench in the state police barracks”.
“He has this constitutional right to the presumption of innocence,” Barone added.
Matar, 24, is accused of attacking Mr Rushdie on Friday as the perpetrator was featured at a conference at the Chautauqua Institute, a non-profit education and retreat centre.
Mr Rushdie, 75, suffered liver damage and severed nerves in an arm and eye. He was on a ventilator and unable to speak, his agent Andrew Wylie reported Friday evening. Mr. Rushdie was at risk of losing his injured eye.
The attack has prompted shock and outrage from much of the world as well as tributes and praise for the award-winning author who for more than 30 years faced death threats for “The Verses satanic”.
Global reactions
Authors, activists and government officials have hailed Mr. Rushdie’s courage for his longstanding advocacy of free speech despite risks to his own safety. Writer and friend Ian McEwan called Mr Rushdie “an inspirational defender of persecuted writers and journalists around the world”, and actor and author Kal Penn cited him as a role model “for a whole generation of artists , especially for many of us in the South Asian Diaspora to whom he showed incredible warmth.”
United States President Joe Biden said in a statement on Saturday that he and first lady Jill Biden were “shocked and saddened” by the attack.
“Salman Rushdie — with his insight into humanity, with his unparalleled sense of history, with his refusal to be bullied or silenced — represents essential and universal ideals,” the statement said. Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear. These are the building blocks of any free and open society. »
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also condemned the attack on the writer.
“The cowardly attack on Salman Rushdie is an affront to the freedom of expression on which our world is built. No one should be threatened or harmed because of what he wrote,” Trudeau wrote on Twitter.
A journey punctuated with threats
Mr Rushdie, originally from India and having since lived in Britain and the United States, is known for his surreal and satirical style of prose, beginning with his Booker Prize-winning novel ‘The Midnight Children’. 1981, in which he sharply criticized then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
The Satanic Verses drew death threats after it was published in 1988, with many Muslims considering a dream sequence based on the life of the Prophet Muhammad to be blasphemy, among other objections. Mr. Rushdie’s book had already been banned and burned in India, Pakistan and elsewhere before Iranian Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Mr. Rushdie’s death in 1989.
Ayatollah Khomeini died the same year, but the fatwa remains in effect. Iran’s current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has never issued a fatwa to revoke the edict, although Iran in recent years has not focused on the writer.
Investigators are trying to determine if the attacker, born a decade after the publication of “Satanic Verses”, acted alone.
District Attorney Schmidt hinted at the fatwa as a potential ground for arguing against bail.
“Even if this court were to set a bond of $1 million, we run the risk that the bond could be met,” Schmidt said.
Authorities said Matar is from Fairview, New Jersey. He was born in the United States to Lebanese parents who emigrated from Yaroun in southern Lebanon, village mayor Ali Tehfe confirmed to The Associated Press (AP).
Flags of the Iran-backed Shia militant group Hezbollah and portraits of leader Hassan Nasrallah, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his late predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and slain Iranian general Ghassem Soleimani are visible throughout the village, which also has a small Christian population. .
Journalists visiting the village on Saturday were asked to leave. Hezbollah spokesmen did not respond to inquiries about Matar and the attack.
Iran’s theocratic government and its state media attributed no motive to the attack. In Tehran, some Iranians interviewed by the AP welcomed the attack on a perpetrator who they said tarnished the Islamic faith, while others feared it could further isolate their country.
Ancient Threats
An AP reporter saw the assailant stab or punch Rushdie about 10 or 15 times. Dr Martin Haskell, a doctor who was among those rushing to help, described Rushdie’s injuries as “severe, but recoverable”.
Event moderator Henry Reese, 73, suffered a facial injury and was treated and released from a hospital, police said. He and Rushdie had planned to discuss the United States as a haven for exiled writers and other artists.
Some long-time visitors to the center have wondered why security was not tightened given the threats against Mr Rushdie and a bounty of more than $3 million on his head.
In 1991, a Japanese translator of the book was stabbed to death and an Italian translator survived a knife attack. In 1993, the book’s Norwegian publisher was shot three times and survived.
Death threats and the bounty drove Mr Rushdie into hiding under a UK government protection scheme, which included a 24-hour armed guard. Mr Rushdie emerged after nine years of solitary confinement and cautiously resumed more public appearances, maintaining his outspoken criticism of religious extremism as a whole.