Matar, a 24-year-old from Fairview, New Jersey, was arraigned late Friday for attempted second-degree murder and second-degree assault, county attorney Jason Schmidt said in a statement.
Schmidt said state and federal law enforcement agencies, including in New Jersey, were working to understand the planning and preparation leading up to the attack and to determine whether charges additional ones had to be worn.
Indian-born author Rushdie, who spent years in hiding after Iran urged Muslims to kill him for his novel The Satanic Verses, was stabbed in the neck and chest on stage during a a conference on Friday. After hours of surgery, Rushdie was on a ventilator and unable to speak Friday night.
Reuters could not immediately establish whether Matar, who had purchased a pass to the event at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, had legal representation.
A preliminary review of Matar’s social media accounts by law enforcement showed he was supportive of Shia extremism and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to NBC New York.
Matar was born in California and recently moved to New Jersey, the NBC New York report said, adding that he had a fake driver’s license on him.
FBI agents visited his last known address, Fairview, a borough in Bergen County just across the Hudson River from Manhattan on Friday night, NBC New York reported.
Police in New York and New Jersey did not immediately respond to a request for comment on NBC New York’s report.
Police said on Friday they had not established a motive for the attack on Rushdie, 75, who was there to give a talk on artistic freedom to an audience of several hundred people when the assailant appeared. rushed to the stage and threw himself on the novelist. Rushdie has lived with his priced head since 1989.