MAYVILLE (New York), Aug 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The man accused of stabbing novelist Salman Rushdie last week in western New York pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and assault charges on Thursday and was held without bail.
Hadi Matar, 24, is accused of wounding Rushdie, 75, on Friday just before the The Satanic Verses author was to deliver a lecture on stage at an educational retreat near Lake Erie. Rushdie was hospitalised with serious injuries in what writers and politicians around the world decried as an attack on the freedom of expression.
Matar was arraigned at the Chautauqua County Courthouse on an indictment returned earlier in the day by a grand jury that charged him with one count of second-degree attempted murder, which carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison, and one count of second-degree assault.
He has been in jail since his arrest and wore a gray-striped jumpsuit, a white face mask and his hands were shackled.
Judge David Foley ordered Matar to have no contact with Rushdie and agreed to a request by his defence lawyer to issue a temporary gag order barring the parties from discussing the case in the media. He said he would consider the defence’s request to release Matar on bail.
Matar will return for another hearing next month.
The attack came 33 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie a few months after “The Satanic Verses” was published. Some Muslims saw passages about the Prophet Muhammad as blasphemous.
Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim Kashmiri family, has lived with a bounty on his head, and spent nine years in hiding under British police protection.
Matar is a Shi’ite Muslim who was born in California to a family from Lebanon.
Rushdie sustained severe injuries in the attack, including nerve damage in his arm, wounds to his liver, and the likely loss of an eye, his agent said. But his condition has been improving since the weekend, and he was taken off a ventilator. — NNN-AGENCIES
