The man suspected of stabbing the novelist Salman Rushdie at a literary festival in western New York pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault at a court appearance on Saturday.
District attorney Jason Schmidt alleged on Saturday that Hadi Matar, 24, took steps to purposely put himself in position to harm Rushdie, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early bearing a fake ID. “This was a targeted, unprovoked, preplanned attack on Mr Rushdie,” Schmidt alleged.
Public defender Nathaniel Barone complained that authorities had taken too long to get Matar in front of a judge while leaving him “hooked up to a bench at the state police barracks”. “He has that constitutional right of presumed innocence,” Barone said.
An attorney for Matar entered the not-guilty plea at a brief court hearing on Saturday attended by Matar in a black and white inmate’s jumpsuit, with his hands cuffed in front of him.
A judge ordered Matar held without bail.
Investigators had earlier booked Matar, of Fairview, New Jersey, with one count of attempted second-degree murder in Rushdie’s stabbing and one count of second-degree assault on a man who shared a stage with the author at the time of the attack on Friday, according to a statement from authorities.
Attempted murder is the more serious of the two counts. The crime, under New York law, can carry up to 25 years in prison upon conviction.
Rushdie, 75, was at the Chautauqua Institution to speak about the importance of America’s giving asylum to exiled writers when he was attacked.
Matar allegedly rushed on stage and stabbed Rushdie repeatedly before being tackled by spectators, institution staffers and two local law enforcement officers providing security.
Rushdie suffered three stab wounds to the right front of his neck, another four to his stomach, one each to his right eye and chest, and a cut to his right thigh, Schmidt said on Saturday.
A helicopter crew flew Rushdie to a hospital in nearby Erie, Pennsylvania, where he underwent surgery. He remained hospitalized on Saturday and appeared likely to lose one eye after the nerves in an arm were severed and his liver was stabbed, his literary agent told media outlets.
The man sharing the stage with Rushdie was 73-year-old Ralph Henry Reese, who runs an organization that provides sanctuary to writers under threat of political persecution. He suffered a relatively minor facial wound during the attack.
New York state police detained Matar at their barracks before booking him into the Chautauqua county jail late on Friday.
Officials have not specified why they think Matar may have wanted to kill Rushdie.
But many have noted that Rushdie was under a “fatwa” – or decree – calling for his death since 1989, when the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued it as retribution to the Indian-born author’s The Satanic Verses.
The Iranian regime has since sought to separate itself from the fatwa, but the price on Rushdie’s head was increased in recent years to more than $3m.
Many Muslims viewed Rushdie’s book as blasphemous because – among other things – it included a character that they interpreted as an insult to the prophet Muhammad, the founder of their faith.
The Satanic Verses was published a decade before Matar was born to parents who emigrated from Lebanon. But, according to reports, his social media activity suggests an admiration of Iran and an attraction to Shia extremism.
Rushdie went into hiding for almost a decade after the fatwa and lived under police protection, which in part inspired the creation of his fellow speaker Reese’s organization.
But Rushdie has since decided to live openly in New York, saying: “Oh, I have to live my life.”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report