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| Photo Credit: AP. |
Author of controversial book “The Satanic Verses” Salman Rushdie has lost his sight and the use of a hand as he recuperates after a deadly attacked in August at ceremony he was billed to address in rural New York.
An article
published Saturday by Spanish language newspaper El Pais revealed that Rushdie
suffered three serious wounds to his neck and 15 more wounds to his chest and
torso in the attack leading to loss of sight in an eye and the incapacitation
of a hand, according to a literary agent Andrew Wylie, The Associated Press
reported.
The controversial
author was attacked on August 12 at a lecture in New York. Rushdie who was on stage at the Chautauqua
Institution in western New York was apparently stabbed in the neck by an
assailant who jumped onto the stage.
The attacker
confronted Rushdie on stage and punched or stabbed him 10 to 15 times as he was
being introduced, according to an Associated Press reporter who witnessed the
incident. The man was arrested as the 75-year-old author was pushed or fell to
the floor.
In 1989 Iran’s
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 edict, a fatwa,
calling for his death after publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” considered
by some Muslims as blasphemous. He has lived in hiding ever since under the
protection of the British government.
24-year-old Hadi
Matar, the suspect who fatally stabbed Rushdie has been charged with attempted
murder and assault, police authorities said in August. He pleaded not guilty to
the charges.
Hadi Matar
who was taken into custody approached the author as he was about to deliver a
speech at the Chautauqua institution in New York and attacked him. He is being
held without bail, the Washington Examiner reports.
Mr. Rushdie
was initially placed on a ventilator at a Pennsylvania hospital after the
deadly attack that damaged nerves to one arm.
A bounty of
over $6 million has also been offered for anyone who kills Rushdie, Washington
Examiner quoted the Index on censorship.
Rushdie was
placed on a British government protected program which included a round the
clock armed guard.