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Home » The suspect in the Rushdie attack is ID’ed [scroll down for UPDATE]

The suspect in the Rushdie attack is ID’ed [scroll down for UPDATE]

The New Neo Posted on by

And surprise surprise surprise:

The man arrested in Friday’s stabbing of famed novelist Salman Rushdie was identified by police as a New Jersey man, who law enforcement sources tell The Post he had sympathies toward the Iranian government that has called for Rushdie’s death.

Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, was arrested after he stormed the stage at the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York and allegedly stabbed the author multiple times, New York State Police said Friday.

Law enforcement sources told The Post that an initial investigation suggests Matar has made social media posts in support of Iran and its Revolutionary Guard, and in support of Shi’a extremism more broadly.

New York State Police, however, said that Matar’s motive remained unclear.

Those New York State Police, always making with the jokes. Motive unclear? I realize they have to be very careful, but come on.

They also say he acted alone.

If you call decades of fatwas and exhortations to kill Rushdie “alone.”

There’s also this:

Regardless, the attack comes amid a slew of foiled Iranian plots on American soil, including a plot against former National Security Advisor John Bolton and an apparent attempt on the life of an Iranian-American journalist in Brooklyn.

Of course, one always has to be wary of foiled plots like the one about killing Bolton, because of what we know about entrapment. And sure enough, an agent was involved, but in the Bolton case from what we’ve learned so far, entrapment does not seem to have been involved:

Prosecutors alleged that in October 2021, Poursafi [a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] contacted a person online, seeking someone to take photographs of Bolton for a supposed book project.

The U.S. contact, identified in court documents as “Individual A,” connected Poursafi with an associate who served as a confidential source for U.S. authorities.

Beginning in early November 2021 and continuing through April 2022, according to prosecutors, Poursafi discussed the plot with the source, offering $250,000 to “eliminate” the former national security official – an amount “negotiated up” to $300,000.

Poursafi allegedly related that he had another “job” for the source that would pay $1 million.

According to court documents, the source asked Poursafi’s help locating Bolton, and the Iranian operative provided Bolton’s work address in Washington.

A search of Poursafi’s online accounts revealed “screenshots of a map application showing a street view of the former national security advisor’s office,” according to court documents. Attached to a screenshot was a note that Poursafi was communicating from Tehran, Iran.

“Poursafi told the (source) that it did not matter how the murder was carried out, but his ‘group’ would require video confirmation of the target’s death,” prosecutors said.

More at the link, and it really doesn’t seem like entrapment was an issue there.

Hadi Matar certainly might have acted alone, but I think it’s a bit premature to say that he actually did.

UPDATE 8:55 PM:

First report on Rushdie’s injuries:

“The news is not good,” Andrew Wylie [Rushdie’s agent] wrote in an emailed update. “Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged.”

Brutal and horrible, but it sounds survivable.

I had earlier suggested that security might have been lax, especially considering that Rushdie is always at risk of assassination, even after all this time. There’s apparently still a $4 million bounty on his head (does the perp get half that for effort?). Here’s more on security:

The lecture hall where Rushdie was stabbed had at least historically featured middling security measures, a former employee of the Chautauqua Institution, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said in an interview on Friday.

Bags were allowed, the employee told The Daily Beast, which they claimed had concerned staffers at the institute as high-profile speakers like Rushdie frequently visit.

In a brief phone call, the Chautauqua Institution told The Daily Beast: “We are dealing with an emergency at this time and have no further comment or information to provide.”

Did Rushdie have his own security? I don’t know, but even if he did, it was clearly inadequate. My guess is that the perp, who lives in New Jersey, researched where Rushdie was going to be speaking and may have discovered that Chautauqua had security that might be the easiest to overcome.

By the way – although I doubt this has much of anything to do with anything, since the perp is not Hispanic – the name “Matar” means “to kill” in Spanish.

Comments

The suspect in the Rushdie attack is ID’ed [scroll down for UPDATE] — 21 Comments

  1. Bolton might be well advised to get a concealed carry permit. I think, in the present heated atmosphere, we are going to see some attempted, and successful, political assassinations. With General Hayden egging them on, Trump needs better security. I don’t trust the SS.,

  2. Hadi Matar, sounds like one of those Anglo Saxon names from Colonial New Jersey, back when Ben Franklin’s son was Royal Governor. I wonder if this is just resentment over immigration?

  3. Pretty tired of people bringing this BS across the ocean with them in countries that have extended a hand. Legal immigrants want to integrate and live peaceful lives. Then there are the rest. This is getting absurd. People that just want to make more money to buy a bigger house back in Guanajuato or Lahore or wherever are not ‘seeking asylum’. What has happened here, after all of Rushdie’s struggles, is the very definition of tragic.

  4. So they can’t possibly guess what his motives were, have no knowledge of the meaning and mechanics of fatwas, haven’t heard any information that might connect the assailant to the victim, but – he was definitely acting alone.

    When you don’t want to leap to conclusions, you don’t say anything – unless it’s to say you’re not ruling anything out. They said something quite different.

  5. There was a libyan writer named matar im guessing hes more lebanese or ayrian because they dont have many shia in the former country

  9. Just recall the Biden admin is currently handing the IRI hundreds of billions in sanctions relief prior to reviving the empty JCPOA.

  10. From his memoir rushdie related how he was always under french raid soecial branch et al when on tour what happened to his security detail here?

  11. That the attacker was born after the original fatwa and still carried it out helps to explain why “feuds” continue for centuries in certain parts of the world.

  12. If the perp was Anglos axon, the motive would be clear. Racist hate crime. But we cannot rush to judgement if the perp is a minority in the U.S. Wouldn’t be PC. We mustn’t offend minorities, even those from the Religion of Pieces.

  13. I saw Rushdie speak in 2009. I was surprised back then at how lax security was. At the time I assumed they figured that 20 years after the fatwa it was okay to let their guard down a little.

    Well, 13 years later….

  14. Not long ago the belgians convicted an iranian agent asadollah asadi for attempted assasinations we just let a pair of iranian and pakistani agents slip through our fingers

  15. @ Mike K > “Trump needs better security. I don’t trust the SS.,”

    I used to think it was vaguely amusing that the American Secret Service, guardians of the president and other VIPs, had the same initials as the you-know-who.

    Now, I don’t think the connection is quite so funny.

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