The 24-year-old accused of slashing Salman Rushdie, a novelist born in Mumbai, has denied any ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and claimed he acted alone.
Hadi Matar, from Fairview, New Jersey, was arrested last week and charged with second-degree attempted murder and assault for stabbing author Salman Rushdie, 75, onstage at a talk at New York’s Chautauqua Institution.
Matar gave a video interview to the New York Post from the Chautauqua County Jail in which he said, “When I discovered he alive, I believe I was startled.”
Rushdie suffered three knife wounds to the neck, four to the stomach, puncture wounds to the right eye and chest, and a laceration on the right leg, according to District Attorney Jason Schmidt of Chautauqua County, who spoke at the time of the suspect’s arraignment.
Matar remained silent when asked whether a fatwa issued after the publication of “The Satanic Verses” in 1989 called for Rushdie’s murder.
In respect of the Ayatollah. My thoughts exactly; he is a great human being. That, Matar told The Post, was the length of his remarks on the matter.
He admitted to have hardly skimmed Rushdie’s controversial book, reading only “like two pages.” “I flipped through a few pages just to see what it was about. Though I did read some of it, I didn’t read it cover to cover “It was an admission, he said.
Matar, who was apparently born in the United States to parents originally from southern Lebanon, denied having any touch with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and suggested that he was functioning solely on his own, as stated in the article.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran plays a pivotal role in the country’s military and government. Though Matar may have had some sort of involvement with the IRGC, this has not been proven.
Matar stated he was inspired to visit Chautauqua after seeing a tweet announcing Rushdie’s arrival at some point over the winter.
I have a strong aversion to that particular person. He continued, referring to Rushdie, “In my opinion, he is not a good human being. I have zero interest in him. I just don’t care for him. One of his sources in The Post said that he had made offensive comments about Islam and its adherents.
Despite the fact that Matar had seen Rushdie’s YouTube videos, he stated that he was less familiar with Rushdie’s literary works.
“I watched a lot of lectures,” he said. She added, “I despise people who are dishonest like that.”
In an almost 15-minute interview with The Post, Matar detailed his journey to Chautauqua from New Jersey the day before the attack via bus and car.
“It was more or less just me chilling. Matar claimed that he had been “doing nothing in particular, just roaming around,” and that he had “slept in the grass outside” the night before the attack.
Just outdoors, that’s where I stayed the whole time.
Matar’s lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, said that his client pleaded not guilty to attempted murder in the second degree and assault with the purpose to do grievous bodily damage in the second degree.
