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Author Sir Salman Rushdie has been taken off his ventilator and is able to talk again, a day after he was tragically stabbed on stage in New York.
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The Satanic Verses author, who was stabbed around 12 times in the face and neck, needed surgery to treat a punctured eye and liver.
The 75-year-old’s agent Andrew Wylie had earlier said Sir Salman was using the ventilator and could lose an eye after he sustained injuries to his arm and liver in the pre-planned attack.
The Indian-born Briton, whose novel The Satanic Verses led to death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was about to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution, 65 miles from Buffalo in New York state, when he was attacked.
Shocking footage from the event shows members of the audience leaping onto the stage to help the novelist in the wake of the attack.
New York governor Kathy Hochul said that a state police officer saved his life and that of the moderator, who she said was also attacked.
She said he is “getting the care he needs at a local hospital”.
The man accused of stabbing Sir Salman pleaded not guilty on Saturday to charges of attempted murder and assault, in what a prosecutor called a “pre-planned” attack.
A lawyer for Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, entered the plea on his behalf during a formal hearing at a court in western New York.
Matar appeared in court wearing a black and white jumpsuit and a white face mask, with his hands cuffed in front of him.
A judge ordered him to be held without bail after district attorney Jason Schmidt told her Matar took steps to purposely put himself in a position to harm Sir Salman, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early with a fake ID.
“This was a targeted, unprovoked, pre-planned attack on Mr Rushdie,” Mr Schmidt said.
Public defender Nathaniel Barone said the authorities had taken too long to get Matar in front of a judge, while leaving him “hooked up to a bench at the state police barracks”.
“He has that constitutional right of presumed innocence,” Mr Barone added.
Henry Reese, who had been due to interview Sir Salman at the event, suffered a minor head injury. He is the co-founder of a non-profit organisation that provides sanctuary to writers exiled under threat of persecution.
Before the attack, Sir Salman was about to give a speech about how the US has served as a haven for such writers.
The novelist was forced into hiding for nearly 10 years after The Satanic Verses – which has been banned in Iran since it was published in 1988 as many Muslims consider it blasphemous.
A bounty of over $3m had also been offered for anyone who kills him.
Iran welcomed the attack on Sir Salman, with The Khorasan newspaper printing a headline which read ‘Satan on the way to hell’ and the country’s state broadcaster called him a “heretic”.
Rishi Sunak has warned the stabbing should act as a “wake-up call for the West” as he called for tougher sanctions following Iran’s response.
The Tory leadership hopeful said described the situation in Iran as “extremely serious” and called for an urgent “strengthened deal and much tougher sanctions”.
Iran’s current government has distanced itself from the fatwa and threats of violence against him but he still faces widespread anger over his writing.
