The man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie in the study stage in New York said in an interview that he was surprised to know that the accomplished writer had survived the attack. Speaking to The New York Post from prison, Hadi Matar said he decided to see Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution after he saw last winter tweet about the planned author’s appearance.
“I don’t like the person. I don’t think he’s a very good person, “Matar told the newspaper.” He is someone who attacks Islam. He attacked their beliefs, the belief system. ” Matar, 24, said he considered the late leader of Iran Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini “Great People” but would not say whether he followed the fatwa, or decree, issued by Khomeini in Iran in 1989 which called for Rushdie’s death after the author published “Verses -Ayat Devil. “
Iran denied involvement in the attack. Matar, who lives at Fairview, New Jersey, said he had no contact with Iranian revolutionary guard. He told the post that he only read “a few pages” from “the verses of Satan.”Rushdie, 75, suffered a damaged liver and separated nerves in the arms and eyes, according to his agent, in Friday attacks. His agent, Andrew Wylie, said his condition had improved and he was on the road to recovery.
Matar, who was charged with an attempt to murder and attack, told the post that he took the bus to Buffalo the day before the attack and then brought Lyft to Chautauqua, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) away. He bought a bait to the Chautauqua Institution page and then slept on the grass of the night before the planned conversation Rushdie. Matar was born in the US but holds a double citizenship in Lebanon, where his parents were born. His mother had told reporters in the interview that Matar changed again from a visit to see his father in Lebanon in 2018. After that, he became depressed and withdrawing from his family, he said.
