The suspect in the attack on Salman Rushdie pleaded not guilty Thursday to attempted murder and assault in a court in Mayville, New York.

Hadi Matar, 24, had stabbed Salman Rushdie, the author of “Satanic Verses”, during a conference on Friday in the nearby city of Chautauqua. Arrested immediately after the fact, the suspect had already pleaded not guilty during a trial hearing on Saturday.

Head bowed, masked, handcuffed and dressed in a black and white striped prison jumpsuit, Hadi Matar spoke Thursday through the voice of his lawyer. The judge opted to keep the suspect in custody, without bail.

The American accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie said in an interview Wednesday that he was “shocked” that the “Satanic Verses” author survived the attack, carried out at a conference in New York state on Friday.

Income “changed” from a trip to Lebanon

“I don’t like this person. I don’t think he’s a good man,” the suspect told the New York Post about the intellectual.

“He is someone who attacked Islam,” he added. Watching videos of the author on YouTube, he found him “hypocritical,” he continued.

Hadi Matar had returned “changed” and more religious from a 2018 trip to Lebanon, his family’s country of origin, his mother told the website on Monday. daily mail.

Rushdie on “The Road to Recovery”

When Salman Rushdie took the stage in an amphitheater, a man ran onto the stage before stabbing him multiple times last Friday, including in the neck and abdomen.

The 75-year-old British perpetrator was airlifted to a hospital and briefly placed on a ventilator before his condition improved. “The road to recovery has begun,” his agent said on Sunday.

Hadi Matar did not say whether he was inspired by the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 from Iran, which called for the death of the author of the “Satanic Verses”, considered blasphemous.