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Mayville (U.S.), Aug. 18 (AP) — The man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie on a podium in Western New York said in an interview that he learned of the accomplished writer He was surprised to have survived the attack.
Hadi Mattar told the New York Post from prison that he decided to meet Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institute after seeing a tweet last winter about the writer’s planned appearance.
“I don’t like this guy. I don’t think he’s a very good guy,” Matar told the paper. “He was someone who attacked Islam. He attacked their belief, their belief system.”
Matar, 24, said he thought late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was “a great man”, but did not say whether he followed Khomeini’s 1989 campaign in Iran. Publishing requires Rushdie to publish “Satan Verses.”
Iran has denied involvement in the attack. Mattar, who lives in Fairview, N.J., said he had no contact with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. He told the Post that he had only read “a few pages” of “Satanic Verses.”
Rushdie, 75, suffered liver damage and severed nerves in one arm and one eye in Friday’s attack, according to his agent. His agent, Andrew Wylie, said his condition had improved and he was recovering.
Mattar, who is charged with murder and attempted assault, told the Post that he took a bus to Buffalo the day before the attack and then a Lyft to Chautauqua, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) away.
He bought a pass to the Chautauqua Academy grounds and then slept on the grass the night before Rushdie was scheduled to speak.
Mattar was born in the United States but holds dual citizenship in Lebanon, where his parents were born. His mother told reporters in an interview that Matar returned from visiting his father in Lebanon in 2018. After that, he became moody and left the family, she said. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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