Police identify suspect who attacked author Salman Rushdie at event in New York

New York Police said at a press conference on Friday that the suspect in the attack on a writer during an event open to the public was identified as Hadi Matar, 24, a resident of Fairview, New Jersey.

Confirmation was granted by the commander of the state police troop, Major Eugene J. Staniszewski.

The writer Salman Rushdie winner of the world’s top literary awards and whose books have generated death threats, was stabbed this Friday (12) before giving a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, according to local police.

The suspect jumped onto the stage and stabbed Rushdie at least once in the neck and once in the abdomen, state police said. Officials and audience members rushed the suspect and detained him before a state trooper took the attacker into custody, police said.

The writer was airlifted from a field adjacent to the site – at a rural resort about 110 kilometers south of Buffalo – to a hospital. One interviewer also suffered a minor head injury, police said.

Rushdie is undergoing surgery on Friday night, according to police.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul told reporters on Friday that Rushdie is “alive” and “getting the care he needs.” She said a state trooper “got up and saved his life and protected him as well as the moderator who was attacked as well.

Rushdie is the author of “Midnight’s Children” (1981) and “The Golden House” (2017). The book “The Satanic Verses” led to him being sentenced to death by Iran in the 1980s for a fatwa (legal pronouncement) by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Some Muslims found the book sacrilegious and the work is banned in the country. Rushdie spent a decade under British protection after the fatwa was issued against him.