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Assassination attempt on Salman Rushdie: "We thought he wanted to fix his microphone"

2022-08-13T12:57:47.472Z


The assassin came onto the stage unhindered and then stabbed several times: Amateur videos show the moment immediately after the attack on the writer Salman Rushdie, an eyewitness describes the course of events.


AreaRead the video transcript expand here

Shocking scenes on Friday in Chautauqua in the US state of New York: The writer Salman Rushdie is seriously injured in a knife attack on an open stage in front of around 2,500 spectators.

Pilar Pintagro, eyewitness

»We sat in the fifth row, the performance had just started.

Salman Rushdie arrived, sat down and people applauded.

One person started to initiate the event and introduced Salman Rushdie and all of a sudden there was a person, a man and we thought he was arranging his microphone or something, it went so fast.

He came from the left and from the right and stabbed him several times, the first time here in the neck, blood flowed out.

Salman Rushdie got up and ran for his life

."

Security guards and bystanders immediately rushed to help, and Rushdie was taken to a hospital by helicopter.

There he underwent surgery for several hours.

His New York agent Andrew Wylie said late in the evening that Rushdie was on artificial respiration, would likely lose an eye, had nerves severed in his arm and injured his liver.

Police arrested suspect Hadi M., a 24-year-old man from New Jersey, that evening and searched his home.

The man had a ticket to the event and, according to police sources, "sympathized with Shia extremism."

Eugene Staniszewski, New York State Police

'It's very early.

We have no clues as to a motive at this time.

But we're working with the FBI and the sheriff's office and we're going to find out what the cause or motive for this attack was.

At this point we assume he was alone but we can't be sure, we're investigating.

"

The event was held under the motto of artistic freedom.

– A topic that has occupied Rushdie for years.

The author became world famous with his novel »The Satanic Verses«.

Many Muslims saw this as blasphemy.

In 1989, the then Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa to kill Rushdie. Rushdie once described the death threats against him as a »fairy tale from a bygone era«.

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2022-08-13

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