(NY Post) The New Jersey man who allegedly stabbed Salman Rushdie in western New York last week praised Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in an exclusive jailhouse interview with the Post on Wednesday — and admitted he didn’t think the author would survive the attack.
“When I heard he survived, I was surprised, I guess,” Hadi Matar, of Fairview, NJ, said in a video interview from the Chautauqua County Jail.
The 24-year-old was mum on whether he was inspired by the late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989 over the author’s book “The Satanic Verses,” citing a warning by his defense attorney.
“I respect the ayatollah. I think he’s a great person. That’s as far as I will say about that,” Matar said, noting he only “read like two pages” of Rushdie’s controversial novel.
