CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY PRISON / via REUTERS
What Salman Rushdie’s attacker Hadi Matar said, interviewed from jail (Hadi Matar August 12, 2022 by Chautauqua County Jail/Handout via REUTERS)
INTERNATIONAL – This is an unexpected interview to say the least. The American accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie spoke to the New York Post from his prison for an interview, unveiled on Wednesday August 17.
Yes the New York Post specifies that the interview took place by videoconference and in the presence of Hadi Matar’s lawyers, the American site does not specify whether or not the authorities have given approval for this interview.
Hadi Matar, 24, did not say whether he was inspired by the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 from Iran, calling for the death of the author of the “Satanic Verses”considered blasphemous.
“I have esteem for the Ayatollah. I think he’s a remarkable person. That’s all I would say about it.”he however assured the New York tabloid, which writes that Hadi Matar’s lawyers advised him not to talk about this subject. Hadi Matar told the newspaper that he read “a few pages” from Salman Rushdie’s novel.
New appearance to come
He also confided that he is ” surprised “ that the author survived the attack, perpetrated Friday at a conference in New York State. “When I heard he had survived, I was surprised”said Hadi Matar to the New York Postwhich indicates having contacted him in prison. The suspect, arrested immediately after the attack, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder on Saturday and is due to appear in court again on Friday.
The 75-year-old British author, stabbed a dozen times and evacuated by helicopter to a hospital, was briefly placed on a ventilator before his condition improved. “The road to recovery has begun”had pointed out his agent on Sunday.
“I don’t like him, I really don’t like him”
“I don’t like this person. I don’t think he’s a good man.”threw the suspect to the New York Post about the intellectual. “I don’t like him, I really don’t like him. “He is someone who attacked Islam”he added. Watching videos of the author on YouTube, he found it “hypocrite”he continued.
He said he was not in contact with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and learned of Salman Rushdie’s presence at a conference at a cultural center in Chautauqua, in upstate New York, via Twitter.
Originally from the state of New Jersey, he told the American media that he took the bus to the city of Buffalo, then a Lyft -competitor of Uber and taxis- to get to Chautauqua. ” I wasn’t doing anything in particular, I was just walking around.he detailed, “I was just outside all the time”. As Salman Rushdie took to the stage in an amphitheater, the man rushed to the stage before stabbing him several times, including in the neck and abdomen.
Hadi Matar had returned “changed” and more religious from a trip in 2018 to Lebanon, the country of origin of his family, his mother said on Monday to the website of the Daily mail.
See also on The Huff Post: An Iranian official violently slapped in the middle of the inauguration
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