FILE PHOTO: Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, who pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault of acclaimed author Salman Rushdie, appears in booking photographs at Chautauqua County Jail in Mayville, New York, U.S. August 12, 2022. Chautauqua County Jail/Handout via REUTERS
MAYVILLE, N.Y. (Reuters) -The man accused of stabbing novelist Salman Rushdie last week in western New York pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and assault charges on Thursday and was held without bail.
Hadi Matar, 24, is accused of wounding Rushdie, 75, on Friday just before the "The Satanic Verses" author was to deliver a lecture on stage at an educational retreat near Lake Erie. Rushdie was hospitalized with serious injuries in what writers and politicians around the world decried as an attack on the freedom of expression.
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