The author said his eyes “looked swollen and it was kinda hanging out of my face like a soft-boil egg.”
“He’s lost the sight of one eye. He had three serious wounds in his neck. One hand is incapacitated.”
Hadi Matar, 24, said Mr Rushdie, 75, was “someone who attacked Islam” but did not confirm that his actions were driven by a fatwa issued by Iran in the 1980s.
“The news is not good. Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed, and his liver was stabbed and damaged,” the statement said.
Mr Rushdie was taken by helicopter to a local hospital, the state police said in a statement. His condition is not yet known.
