The suspect in the stabbing of renowned British-American novelist Salman Rushdie in New York state last week pleaded not guilty Thursday to second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault.
Hadi Matar, the man accused of ambushing Rushdie as he was about to deliver remarks at the Chautauqua Institution, made the plea during his arraignment in a Mayville, N.Y., courtroom after a grand jury indicted him on those charges. He is to be held without bail, the judge ordered. If convicted of attempted murder, Matar could face a sentence of up to 25 years in prison. An assault conviction could mean up to seven years in prison, a prosecutor told CNN.
Rushdie suffered serious injuries to the neck and abdomen from the attack for which he underwent emergency surgery at a trauma center in the hospital. After being put on a ventilator, unable to speak, the author went off the machine Monday and has started recovering, although slowly, literary agent Andrew Wylie told CNBC.
Jason Schmidt, the Chautauqua prosecutor on the case, said the county’s district attorney’s office is considering whether the suspect’s charges could be upgraded to a hate-crime charge but won’t be pursued as such for the time being. FBI Director of Public Information Beau Duffy also said it could potentially probe the incident as a hate crime, “but no hate crime charges have been filed at this time,” the agency told Fox News.
On Thursday a prosecutor said Matar had multiple knives in his possession when he went to Chautauqua. A resident of Fairview, N.J., Matar is believed to have arrived in Buffalo via public transportation and a ride-sharing app a day before Rushdie’s presentation, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN this week.
Matar’s social media presence indicated he may identify with Shia extremism and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGS) causes but a motive has not yet been shared by authorities.
In 1988, Rushdie published The Satanic Verses, a novel that angered Muslim extremists over what they deemed a blasphemous depiction of the prophet Muhammad as well as a derogatory characterization of the Quran, the faith’s holy book. A year later, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader, issued a fatwa demanding Rushdie’s death over Rushdie’s work.
An Iranian religious foundation offered a reward of over $3 million for anyone who would assassinate him. For his bravery and boldness in his critiques, even in the face of danger, Rushdie became a prominent figure of free expression in America.
The book had a sales surge after the stabbing, reaching No.1 in contemporary fiction on Amazon’s best-sellers list on Saturday.
Iran’s regime has blamed Rushdie for his own stabbing and denied it was involved in the attack.
“We categorically and seriously deny any connection of the assailant with Iran,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said. “We do not consider anyone other than (Rushdie) and his supporters worth of blame and even condemnation.”