LAST UPDATE | 14 Aug 2022

THE FAMILY OF Salman Rushdie has said he has sustained “life-changing injuries” after he was stabbed in the neck and abdomen, but has been taken off a ventilator.

Rushdie, 75, was attacked on stage on Friday, moments before he was to be interviewed as part of a lecture series. The suspected attacker was apprehended at the scene and pleaded not guilty yesterday to attempted murder charges.

In a statement posted on Twitter by his son Zafar, Rushdie’s family said “his usual feisty and defiant sense of humour remains intact.”

A family statement… @SalmanRushdie #SalmanRushdie pic.twitter.com/tMrAkoqliq

— Zafar Rushdie (@ZafRushdie) August 14, 2022

“My father remains in critical condition in hospital receiving extensive ongoing medical treatment. We are extremely relieved that yesterday he was taken off the ventilator and additional oxygen and was able to say a few words.

“We are so grateful to all the audience members who bravely leapt to his defence and administered first aid, along with the police and doctors who have cared for him.”

Earlier today, Rushdie’s agent Andrew Wylie said in a statement to The Washington Post that the author’s recovery process would be a lengthy one.

The Indian-born Briton, whose novel The Satanic Verses led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution, 65 miles from Buffalo in New York state, when he was attacked.

The man accused of stabbing him yesterday pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault, in what a prosecutor called a “pre-planned” crime.

A lawyer for Hadi Matar, 24, entered the plea on his behalf during a formal hearing at a court in western New York.

Matar appeared in court wearing a black and white jumpsuit and a white face mask, with his hands cuffed in front of him.

A judge ordered him to be held without bail after district attorney Jason Schmidt told her Matar took steps to purposely put himself in a position to harm Rushdie, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early with a fake ID.

“This was a targeted, unprovoked, pre-planned attack on Mr Rushdie,” Schmidt said.

Public defender Nathaniel Barone said the authorities had taken too long to get Matar in front of a judge, while leaving him “hooked up to a bench at the state police barracks”.

“He has that constitutional right of presumed innocence,” Barone added.

Rushdie was stabbed at least once in the neck and once in the abdomen, according to police, before he was taken to hospital.

Rushdie’s publisher Penguin Random House said they were “deeply shocked and appalled” by the incident.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said: “Today, the country and the world witnessed a reprehensible attack against the writer Salman Rushdie. This act of violence is appalling.

“All of us in the Biden-Harris administration are praying for his speedy recovery. We are thankful to good citizens and first responders for helping Rushdie so quickly after the attack and to law enforcement for its swift and effective work, which is ongoing.”

Rushdie began his writing career in the early 1970s with two unsuccessful books before Midnight’s Children, about the birth of India, which won the Booker Prize in 1981.

The author lived in hiding for many years in London under a British government protection programme after the fatwa.

In 1998, the Iranian government withdrew its support for the death sentence and Rushdie gradually returned to public life, even appearing as himself in the 2001 film Bridget Jones’s Diary.

The Index on Censorship, an organisation promoting free expression, said money was raised to boost the reward for Rushdie’s killing as recently as 2016, underscoring that the fatwa still stands.

Additional reporting by Emer Moreau