A grand jury in New York indicted Salman Rushdie’s alleged attacker on Thursday, prosecutors announced. The judge also ordered Hadi Matar, 24, to be held without bail until his arraignment, which is scheduled for Thursday afternoon. The indictment means Matar will go straight to trial rather than have a hearing to assess evidence against him for his charges, which include attempted murder of the author. Matar pleaded not guilty to those charges Saturday. New charges have not yet been revealed, Matar’s lawyer said Thursday morning. Prosecutors argue that the brutal attack that left Rushdie on a ventilator for days was “pre-planned.” Matar is accused of charging on stage at a writers conference and stabbing Rushdie, 75, multiple times. Although there has been no clear motive for the attack, Matar told the New York Post in an interview from jail that Rushdie is “someone who attacked Islam. He attacked their beliefs, the belief systems,” presumably referring to his novel “The Satanic Verses,” which earned Rushdie a fatwa, or death edict, issued by from Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
