'I'm surprised he survived': Salman Rushdie's attacker speaks from prison after frenzied stabbing

Salman Rushdie’s attacker has said that he is ‘surprised’ that the author survived, and admitted that he only read a ‘couple of pages’ of his Satanic Verses.

Hadi Matar, 24, slammed Rushdie for ‘attacking Islam’, before adding ‘I don’t like him very much’ in a jailhouse interview.

Rushdie, 75, had to undergo emergency surgery after Matar allegedly stabbed him multiple times as he took to the stage to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institute on August 12.

In an interview with the New York Post from the Chautauqa County Jail, Matar, from Fairvew, New Jersey, said that he was ‘surprised’ that the author survived.

He said: ‘I don’t like the person. I don’t think he’s a very good person, I don’t like him. I don’t like him very much.

‘He’s someone who attacked Islam, he attacked their beliefs, the belief systems.’

Matar  has spoken out saying he ‘doesn’t like’ Rushdie in a jailhouse interview, but would not say if he was inspired by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa

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