Author of attack on writer Salman Rushdie, accused of attempted murder

The 24-year-old Matar from Fairview of the state of New Jersey was arrested late Friday on charges of attempted murder, district prosecutor Jason Schmidt said in a statement.

The India-born Novelist, who lived years in secrecy after Iran urged Muslims to kill him for his novel “Satanic Wars”, was stabbed on his neck and chest on Friday.

According to his agent, the 75-year-old is being kept on oxygen by doctors. Andrew. Wylie said the writer has liver damage, broken nerves on his arm and could lose one eye.

Prosecutor Schmidt said state and federal law enforcement agencies, including those in New Jersey, were working to identify details of the planning and preparation of the attack and to determine whether additional charges should be filed.

Police said on Friday they had not yet determined the motive for the attack on 75-year-old Rushdie, who was invited to give a speech to a hundreds of people audience on artistic freedom when Matar took the stage and attacked him.

A preliminary analysis by Iran's social media agencies and activities in Mostar shows that it is a sympathetic with the Shi's extremism and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, although no confirmed link has been established with these groups, according to NBC television.

Matar was born in California and had recently moved to New Jersey, it was said in the NBC's announcement that also revealed he had a fake license with him. He was arrested at the scene after being blocked by those present.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard is a powerful faction that controls a business empire, as well as armed elite and intelligence forces that Washington accuses of conducting an extremist global campaign.

Rusdie, who was born into a Muslim Indian family from Kashmir in Bombay today Mumbai é and then settled in Britain, faced death threats when he published his fourth novel, “Satanic Wars”, which some Muslims said contained blasphemer parts.

Roman was banned in many countries with large Muslim populations after his 1998 edition.

In 1989 former Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruholah Khomenin issued a religious decree calling for the murder of Mr. Rushdie.

Hitoshi Igarash, a Japanese Roman translator, was stabbed to death in 1991.

There has been no official response from Iran's government to the attack on the writer, but some Iranian hardline newspapers expressed praise for his attacker.

Ali Tehfe, mayor of Yarrow in southern Lebanon, said Matar was the son of a resident of this city. The suspect's parents emigrated to the United States and he was born and grew up there, the mayor added.

Asked whether the author of the attack or his parents were connected or backed Iran-backed Hezbollah's armed group in Lebanon, the mayor said he had no information “on their political views. / VOA