Rabbi Charles Savenor was among the roughly 2,500 people in the audience. But after the attack, some longtime visitors to the center questioned why there wasn't tighter security for the event, given the decades of threats against Rushdie and a bounty on his head offering more than $3 million for anyone who kills him. He and Rushdie were due to discuss the United States as a refuge for writers and other artists in exile.Ī state trooper and a county sheriff's deputy were assigned to Rushdie's lecture, and state police said the trooper made the arrest. Reese suffered a facial injury and was treated and released from a hospital, police said.

Martin Haskell, a physician who was among those who rushed to help, described Rushdie's wounds as ''serious but recoverable.''Įvent moderator Henry Reese, 73, a co-founder of an organization that offers residencies to writers facing persecution, was also attacked. The author was pushed or fell to the floor, and the man was arrested.ĭr. Eugene Staniszewski said.Īn Associated Press reporter witnessed the attacker confront Rushdie on stage at the Chautauqua Institution and stab or punch him 10 to 15 times as he was being introduced. The motive for the attack was unclear, State Police Maj. Matar was born a decade after ''The Satanic Verses'' was published. He was arrested at the scene and was awaiting arraignment. Police identified the attacker as Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey. His agent, Andrew Wylie, said the writer was on a ventilator Friday evening, with a damaged liver, severed nerves in his arm and an eye he was likely to lose. Salman Rushdie, whose novel ''The Satanic Verses'' drew death threats from Iran's leader in the 1980s, was stabbed in the neck and abdomen Friday by a man who rushed the stage as the author was about to give a lecture in western New York.Ī bloodied Rushdie, 75, was flown to a hospital and underwent surgery.

This still image from video shows Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, N.J., at left, being escorted from the stage as people tend to author Salman Rushdie, center right, at the Chautauqua Institution, in Chautauqua, N.Y., Aug.

Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie