Salman Rushdie is in surgery after being airlifted to hospital 33 years after Iran issued fatwah for The Satanic Verses

Aug 13, 2022 by Jill

by Emma James For Dailymail.Com and Adam Solomons For Mailonline:

New York State Police have identified the suspect in Friday’s stabbing of novelist Salman Rushdie as a New Jersey man who, according to law enforcement sources, allegedly had ‘sympathies toward the Iranian government.’

Rushdie, 75, whose novel ‘The Satanic Verses’ drew death threats from Iran’s leader in the 1980s, remained in surgery Friday evening hours after being stabbed up to 15 times by a man who rushed the stage as the author was about to give a lecture in western New York.

Authorities confirmed that the attacker Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, was arrested at the scene and was awaiting arraignment. State police Maj. Eugene Staniszewski said the motive for the stabbing was unclear.

But law enforcement sources told The New York Post that an initial investigation suggests Matar is sympathetic to the Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Rushdie, who has been the subject of death threats from the Iranian regime since the late 1980s, was attacked as he was being introduced to the stage for the CHQ 2022 event in Chautauqua, near Buffalo, on Friday morning.

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Read also: Douglas Murray on Salman Rushdie: This Time, Britain Must Stand Behind Him by Toby Young, Daily Sceptic

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