WASHINGTON: The suspect who attacked novelist Salman Rushdie with a knife last week pleaded not guilty and will be held in detention without bail, Sputnik quoted the Buffalo News report on Thursday.
The report said the suspect, Hadi Matar, 24, pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault.
On Aug 12, Rushdie was preparing to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York when Matar approached the stage and stabbed him in the neck and abdomen. Rushdie was hospitalised and placed on a ventilator. On Sunday, Rushdie, was disconnected from the ventilator and is now able to talk.
Rushdie is a celebrated India-born British author and winner of numerous literary prizes. In 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran at the time, issued an edict calling for the killing of Rushdie, whose book “The Satanic Verses” is viewed as blasphemous by many Muslims.- Bernama
