Salman Rushdie stabbed | Attacker charged with attempted murder

(ERIE) The assailant of Salman Rushdie, a young American of Lebanese descent, was brought before a New York state judge before whom he pleaded “not guilty” to “attempted murder” of the writer , still hospitalized in serious condition, but who was able to say a few words on Saturday evening.

Threatened with death since a “fatwa” from Iran in 1989, a year after the publication of the satanic versesSalman Rushdie was stabbed a dozen times on Friday, an attack that outrages in the West, but which is welcomed by extremists in Iran and Pakistan.

During a procedural hearing at the Chautauqua court, Hadi Matar, 24, charged with “attempted murder and assault”, appeared in a black and white striped prison uniform, handcuffed and masked, and did not say a word. word, according to New York Times (NYT) and photos from the local press.

Premeditated attack

Prosecutors said Friday’s attack at a cultural center in Chautauqua, where Mr. Rushdie was going to give a lecture, was premeditated. At 75, the intellectual was stabbed at least ten times in the neck and abdomen.

The suspect, who lives in New Jersey, has pleaded “not guilty” by the voice of his lawyer and will appear again on August 19.

On Saturday, the authorities and relatives of Salman Rushdie remained silent on the state of health of the naturalized American Briton. He was hospitalized on Friday on life support in Erie, Pennsylvania, on the edge of the lake that separates the United States from Canada.

However, his agent Andrew Wylie, an alarmist on Friday evening with the New York Times – “Salman will probably lose an eye, the nerves in his arm were severed and he was stabbed in the liver” – simply told the NYT that his client started talking again on Saturday evening, without saying whether or not he remained under respiratory support.

The attack caused shock waves, especially in Western countries: US President Joe Biden condemned “a brutal attack” and paid tribute to Mr. Rushdie for his “refusal to be intimidated and silenced”.

Normal life in New York

Living in New York for 20 years, Salman Rushdie had resumed a more or less normal life while continuing to defend, in his books, satire and irreverence.

Coincidence, the German magazine Stern interviewed him a few days ago before the attack: “Since I’ve been living in the United States, I no longer have a problem […] My life is back to normal, ”says the writer, in this forthcoming interview. Verbatim on August 18, saying he was “optimistic” despite “daily death threats”.

Iran’s “fatwa” has in fact never been lifted and many of its translators have been injured by attacks or even killed, such as the Japanese Hitoshi Igarashi, who was stabbed to death in 1991.

In the United States, the giant Amazon reported an increase in orders for “Satanic Verses” and the New York bookstore Strand Bookstore told AFP that “people came to see what he wrote and know what we had” in stock.

“His fight is ours, universal”, President Emmanuel Macron launched on Friday, while UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres declared himself “horrified”.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced Saturday a “cowardly attack”, and an “affront to freedom of expression”.

“Nothing justifies a fatwa, a death sentence”, was indignant Charlie Hebdoa French satirical newspaper decimated by an Islamist attack in January 2015.

Attack hailed in Iran and Pakistan

In southern Lebanon, Ali Qassem Tahfa, the village chief of Yaroun, told AFP that Hadi Matar was “of Lebanese origin”. The young man “was born and raised in the United States. His mother and father are from Yaroun,” he said without commenting on the attack.

But in Iran, the ultra-conservative daily Kayhan praised the assailant: “Bravo to this brave and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and vicious Salman Rushdie,” the newspaper writes. “Let us kiss the hand of him who tore the neck of the enemy of God with a knife”.

And at the Tehran book market, Mehrab Bigdeli, a Shiite cleric, said he was “very happy to hear the news. Whoever the author, I kiss his hand […] God damn Salman Rushdie”.

In neighboring Pakistan, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan party – renowned for its violence against what it calls anti-Muslim blasphemy – also judged that Rushdie “deserved to be killed”.

Salman Rushdie, born in 1947 in India into a family of non-practicing Muslim intellectuals, set part of the Islamic world ablaze with the publication of satanic versesleading the Iranian Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini to issue the “fatwa” demanding his assassination.

The author of fifteen novels, stories for young people, short stories and essays written in English had been forced to live in hiding and under police protection, going from hiding to hiding