Threatened with death since a “fatwa” from Iran in 1989, a year after the publication of the “Satanic Verses”, the British writer Salman Rushdie was stabbed a dozen times on Friday, an attack which outrages in the West but which is hailed by extremists in Iran and Pakistan.
During a procedural hearing at the Chautauqua court, her alleged attacker Hadi Matar, 24, charged with “attempted murder and assault”, appeared in black and white striped prison uniform, handcuffed and masked, and did not not say a word, according to the New York Times (NYT) and local press photos.
Salman Ruhdie “on the road to recovery”
Prosecutors said Friday’s attack at a cultural center in Chautauqua, where Salman Rushdie was going to give a talk, 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, alarmist Friday night with the New York Times, said that the author “talks and jokes”, and is no longer on life support, according to Associated Press. “The injuries are serious, but his condition is moving in the right direction,” added the agent, who indicates that the writer is on “the road to recovery”.
“We are extremely relieved that yesterday he was taken off the ventilator and oxygen supply and was able to say a few words,” his family said in a statement tweeted by his son Zafar Rushdie, adding, ” Although his injuries are serious and life-changing, his usual lively and provocative sense of humor remains intact.