Later in the day, Rushdie was placed on a ventilator and unable to speak, his agent Andrew Wiley told The New York Times. He will probably lose an eye, Wiley said. “The nerves in his arm were severed and his liver was punctured and damaged. The news is not good.”
A suspect was taken into custody shortly afterward, and authorities are working to determine a motive and charges, state police said.
After the attack, questions were raised about security precautions — or the lack thereof — at the host institution, which is located in a rural lake resort about 70 miles south of Buffalo, New York.
The institution’s management rejected recommendations for basic security measures, including bag checks and metal detectors, out of concern that it would create a divide between the speakers and the audience, according to two sources who spoke to CNN. Management also feared it would change the culture at the institution, the sources said.
The two sources have direct knowledge of the Chautauqua Institute security situation and past recommendations and spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
It is unclear whether the recommended measures would have prevented the attack on Rushdie based on information released about the incident as of Friday evening. Authorities have not released the type of weapon used in the attack.
There were no security searches or metal detectors at the event, a person who witnessed the attack told CNN. The witnesses are not being identified because they have expressed concerns for their personal safety.
CNN reached out to the Chautauqua Institute and its leadership for comment, but did not hear back Friday.
The institution’s president, Michael Hill, defended his organization’s security plans when asked during a press conference Friday if there would be more precautions at future events.
“We evaluate for each event what we think is the appropriate level of security, and this was certainly one that we felt was important, which is why we had a state trooper and sheriff’s presence there,” Hill said. “We will assess for each of the events at the Institution what we believe is the appropriate level of security, and this is an ongoing process that we work with local law enforcement.”
Also injured Friday was Henry Reese, co-founder of the Pittsburgh nonprofit City of Asylum, who was supposed to join Rushdie in a discussion, police said. He was taken to a hospital and treated for a facial injury and released.
Rushdie’s works have won several literary prizes, including the Booker Prize for his 1981 book Midnight’s Children. But his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, attracted the most attention, as some Muslims found the book blasphemous, and its publication in 1988 sparked public demonstrations.
The late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who described the book as an insult to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, issued a religious edict, or fatwa, calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989.
Authorities were at a New Jersey home associated with the suspect
The suspect in the attack has been identified as Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, New York State Trooper Commander Maj. Eugene Staniszewski said Friday evening during a news conference.
The attack happened around 10:45 a.m. when Rushdie was being introduced, a witness told CNN. A man in a black shirt appeared to be “hitting” the author. The witness, who was about 75 feet from the scene, did not hear the gunman say anything or see a weapon.
Another witness, Joyce Lussier, was sitting in the second row when she saw a man “swinging across the stage and right at Mr. Rushdie.
“He came from the left and jumped across the stage and just lunged at him. In, I don’t know, two seconds, he was across the stage,” Lucier said. She heard people screaming and crying and saw people in the audience rushing to the stage, she said.
Matar, 24, allegedly stabbed Rushdie at least once in the neck and at least once in the abdomen, state police said. Staff members and members of the public rushed to the attacker and tackled him to the ground before a state trooper arrested him, police said.
By Friday night, police had blocked off the street to the New Jersey home believed to be connected to the suspect.
Iran’s prize was never picked up
Rushdie, the son of a successful Muslim businessman in India, was educated in England, first at Rugby School and later at Cambridge University, where he received an MA in history.
After college, he began working as an advertising copywriter in London before publishing his first novel, Grimus, in 1975.
In 1989, as a result of the fatwa, Rushdie began a decade under British protection.
Rushdie told CNN in 1999 that the experience taught him to “value even more … intensely the things I used to value, like the art of literature and freedom of expression and the right to say things that other people don’t like .
“It may have been an unpleasant decade, but it was the right fight, you know. The fight was about the things I most believe in versus the things I most dislike, which are bigotry, bigotry and censorship.”
The award against Rushdie was never overturned, although in 1998 the Iranian government tried to distance itself from the fatwa by promising not to seek to enforce it.
However, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently reaffirmed the religious edict.
In February 2017, on Khamenei’s official website, the Supreme Leader was asked if “the fatwa against Rushdie is still in effect”, to which Khamenei confirmed that it was, saying: “The decree is as issued by Imam Khomeini.”
Ray Sanchez, Adam Thomas, Christina Sguelia, Samantha Beach, Lauren Said-Moorhouse, Liam Reilly, David Romain, Nicky Brown, Mark Morales, Christina McSouris, Jonny Hallam and Artemis Moshtaghian contributed to this report by CNN.
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