Investigators hunt motivation and movements of man accused of Rushdie attack

After author Salman Rushdie was stabbed Friday at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, state and federal investigators sought to determine the suspect’s motivation, plans, communications and movements as Mr. Rushdie was in a precarious condition Saturday. wrong.

Rushdie, who had spent decades under Iran’s ban, was on a ventilator after hours of surgery and unable to speak, Andrew Wylie, his agent, said in an email Friday night. Attempts to get Mr. Wylie Saturdays were unsuccessful.

Mr Wylie said Friday the author’s condition was “not good”. Mr Rushdie could lose an eye, his liver was damaged and the nerves in his arm were severed, he said.

Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, said on Saturday he was shocked by the attack on the author, which decades ago became a symbol of freedom of expression in the face of repression.

“Violence is in no way a reaction to words spoken or written by others in their exercise of freedom of opinion and expression,” Guterres said in a statement.

New York State Police said at a news conference Friday afternoon that there was no evidence of a motive, but that they were working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man, was arrested at the scene and charged with attempted murder and assault, New York State Police said. He is being held in the Chautauqua County Jail, where officials say he will be arraigned on Saturday.

A video on TikTok that was subsequently deleted showed the chaotic scene on Friday, just after the attacker jumped onstage in the normally quiet center for intellectual discourse. Mr Rushdie, who lived relatively openly after years of semi-clandestine existence, had just sat down to give a lecture when a man attacked him.

A crowd of people immediately rushed to the place where the author lay on the podium to offer help. Stunned members of the audience could be seen throughout the amphitheater. While some screamed, others got up and walked slowly to the stage. People began to gather in the aisles. Someone could be heard shouting “Oh my God” repeatedly.

A sheriff’s deputy and another law enforcement officer with a dog ran to the crime scene about a minute later.

In a statement on Friday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called the attack on Rushdie “reprehensible”.

“This act of violence is horrific,” he said.

State police did not provide an update on Mr Rushdie’s condition on Saturday morning. A spokeswoman for a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania, where Mr Rushdie is being treated, said it would not provide information about the patient’s condition.

At a house listed as Mr. Matar’s home in Fairview, NJ, no one answered the door on Saturday morning. A woman in a gray Jeep Rubicon in the driveway kept her windows open and waved reporters away as she drove away. Many of Mr. Matar’s neighbors said they did not know him.

Antonio Lopa, who lives opposite Mr. Matar, said he saw between 10 and 15 FBI agents outside Mr. Matar’s house Friday afternoon. They stayed until nearly 1:30 a.m., he said.

Officials said at a news conference Friday that they were working to obtain search warrants for a backpack and electronic devices found at the facility.

Rushdie had been under threat of an assassination attempt since 1989, about six months after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses. The book fictionalized parts of the prophet Muhammad’s life with images that offended some Muslims, who believed the novel to be blasphemous. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led Iran after the 1979 revolution, issued an edict known as a fatwa on February 14, 1989. It ordered Muslims to kill Mr Rushdie.

In 1991 the Japanese translator of the novel was stabbed to death and the Italian translator was seriously injured. The Norwegian publisher of the novel was shot three times outside his Oslo home in 1993 and was seriously injured.

Elizabeth Harriso, Chelsea Rose Marcius and Farnaz Fassihi reporting contributed.