New York:

The guy set to interview Salman Rushdie in New York state moments ahead of the famend novelist used to be attacked mentioned Sunday he to begin with idea anyone used to be taking part in a merciless comic story, however used to be jolted to truth when he noticed blood.

Henry Reese, president of non-profit staff City of Asylum, used to be additionally injured when an attacker invaded a literary tournament degree Friday and stabbed Rushdie within the neck and stomach; he mentioned it took a number of moments to snatch what used to be happening.

“It used to be very obscure. It gave the look of a kind of dangerous prank and it did not have any sense of truth,” Reese, 73, informed CNN.

“Then when there used to be blood at the back of him, it changed into actual.”

Reese, who seemed at the community Sunday with a big bandage over his bruised and swollen proper eye, declined to speak about specifics concerning the assault.

But he mentioned that once a person raced onstage he idea the incident used to be a “dangerous reference” to the spiritual decree that Iran’s leaders had issued calling for Muslims to kill Rushdie, and “now not that it used to be an actual assault.”

The suspected assailant, Hadi Matar, 24, used to be wrestled to the bottom via team of workers and different target market individuals ahead of being taken into police custody.

Rushdie spent years below police coverage after Iranian leaders known as for his killing over his portrayal of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed in his novel “The Satanic Verses.”

Reese mentioned he used to be because of visit Rushdie the City of Asylum motion, which seeks to give protection to freedom of expression and which Reese mentioned he introduced after listening to an inspirational Rushdie cope with in 1997.

“That is the bleak kind of irony — or possibly aim — not to simplest attack his frame, however to attack the entirety that he represented,” Reese mentioned.

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