Who is Hadi, the person who attacked Salman Rushdie

Details about the culprit were coming to light the day after Salman Rushdie was stabbed by a man who barged the stage as the author was ready to deliver a lecture in western New York.

After the incident, Rushdie, 75, was transported to a hospital where he underwent surgery. His agent, Andrew Wylie, stated Friday night that the author is currently unable to talk due to being on a ventilator. He added that Rushdie’s nerves in his arm were ‘severed,’ his liver had been ‘stabbed and injured,’ and that Rushdie will probably lose an eye.

The attacker was Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, according to the authorities. According to a statement released on Saturday by the New York State Police, Matar was detained for attempted second-degree murder and second-degree assault. According to them, the suspect was taken to the Chautauqua County Jail and will be charged on Saturday. At the Chautauqua Institution, a non-profit learning and retreat facility where Rushdie was supposed to speak, he was detained.

Matar was born in America to Lebanese parents who had fled Yaroun, a border hamlet in southern Lebanon, according to Mayor Ali Tehfe. Rushdie’s 1988 novel ‘The Satanic Verses,’ which garnered death threats from Iran’s government decades ago, was published a decade after his birth. The State Police’s Eugene Staniszewski said it was unclear why the attack occurred. According to a Hezbollah official who declined to be named, the organization doesn’t “know anything” about the suspect and is supported by Iran.

According to Michael Hill, president of the Chautauqua Institution, Matar had a ticket to enter the 750-acre grounds of the institution, like other visitors. Public Attorney Representative for the suspect Nathaniel Barone declined to comment, stating he was still gathering information. Authorities closed off access to Matar’s house. Late on Friday night, Matar was transported from the Jamestown barracks of the New York State Police to the Chautauqua County jail, as shown on video by WNY News Now.

Many Muslims considered ‘The Satanic Verses’ to be blasphemous because, among other things, one of the characters was considered an affront to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The novel was banned in Iran, whose late supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or decree, in 1989 calling for Rushdie’s execution. The government of theocratic Iran and its state-run media made no mention of the incident on Friday.

WATCH: Controversial author Salman Rushdie Stabbed in the Neck on Stage in New York

Some Iranians who were contacted by the AP in Tehran on Saturday expressed support for the assault on the writer who they believed had desecrated Islam, while others expressed worry that it would further alienate their country. An AP reporter witnessed the attacker approach Rushdie on stage and stab or punch him 10 to 15 times while he was being honored. Dr. Martin Haskell, a medical professional who leaped in to help, described Rushdie’s wounds as ‘serious but manageable.’ State police reported that the trooper who was assigned to Rushdie’s speech together with a county sheriff’s deputy made the arrest.