Writer Salman Rushdie was unplugged and resumed speaking yesterday, after being hospitalized following his stabbing on Friday at the festival stage in Chautauqua, New York. The 75-year-old author remains hospitalized with serious injuries but colleague Aatish Taseer tweeted the night that he was “unplugged from the fan and was talking (and joking)”. Rushdie’s agent Andrew Wylie confirmed the information without giving further details.
Salman Rushdie, attack on freedom
francesco semprini
According to District Attorney Jason Schmidt, Rushdie was stabbed three times on the right side of the front of the neck, four in the stomach, one in the right eye, one in the chest and one on the right thigh. It was therefore ten stab wounds in all.
Salman Rushdie’s assailant had arrived one day before the event the writer was due to attend at the Chautauqua Institution and had presented himself with a fake ID. This was stated by the county district attorney, Jason Schmidt, explaining why the investigators believe that the attack on the writer was “targeted and premeditated”. The prosecutor did not specify it but it is likely that the fake document is the driving license that was found on Hadi Matar in the name of a Hezbollah ‘martyr’. The attacker’s public attorney, Nathaniel Barone, complained to the prosecutor that the client was left handcuffed in a police station for too long before being brought before a judge. “He is entitled to the presumption of innocence,” the lawyer said, according to the Associated Press. The attacker pleaded “not guilty”. The judge ordered Matar to be arrested without bail.
Salman Rushdie: “After the fatwa I was wrong to escape”
ANDREA MALAGUTI
