The assassination attempt on the British author Rushdie in the USA leaves lasting traces. His agent reports that the 75-year-old can only see with one eye and move only one hand.
After the assassination of writer Salman Rushdie in August in the United States, the 75-year-old went blind in one eye. In addition, Rushdie could no longer move a hand, his agent Andrew Wylie told the Spanish newspaper "El Pais". When asked by the paper how Rushdie was doing almost two and a half months after the attack, Wylie explained: "The wounds are deep (...) He suffered three serious wounds on his neck and another 15 on his back and upper body. It was a brutal attack ." The agent would not say where Rushdie is currently and whether he is still being treated in the hospital. "I can't give any information about his whereabouts. But I can say that he will survive. And that's the most important thing."
Rushdie was attacked with a knife at a literary event in New York. He suffered numerous wounds to his neck and upper body and had to undergo emergency surgery. The assassin was arrested. The young man from the US state of New Jersey is to be tried in the United States for attempted murder.
Nothing is known about the motive for the crime. Among Rushdie's best-known works is the 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, which parts of the Muslim world believe is a mockery of the Prophet Muhammad. In 1989, the then Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a religious edict (fatwa) calling on Muslims to assassinate Rushdie. The writer, who was born in India to a Muslim family, then lived under British police protection for nine years. Although the Iranian government of President Mohammad Khatami distanced itself from the fatwa in the late 1990s, the bounty placed on Rushdie by some organizations grew to several million dollars. The fatwa was never revoked.
Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was suspended from Twitter in 2019 for declaring that the fatwa against Rushdie was "irrevocable". The pro-government Iranian newspaper "Kayhan", whose editor-in-chief will be appointed by Khamenei, said after the crime in August: "A thousand bravos (...) for the courageous and dutiful person who killed the renegade and evil Salman Rushdie in New York attacked."
