The gesture of Hadi Matar, the American assailant of Lebanese origin who stabbed the British writer Salman Rushdie several times in New York on Friday August 12, sparked a wave of condemnation in Lebanon. Hezbollah refuses to comment on the affair and official circles are not very vocal.
With our correspondent in Beirut, Paul Khalifeh
Lebanese official circles are discreet about Salman Rushdie’s aggressor. In an effort to remove Lebanon from the spotlight, the director of General Security, Abbas Ibrahim, said on Saturday that Hadi Matar was born in the United States and ” had never set foot in his country of origin.
Remarks denied by the mother of the attacker, who assured the British press that her son had stayed for a month in Lebanon, in 2018, and stressed that this trip had exchange “.
Questioned by numerous journalists, Hezbollah sources refuse to comment on the case. But on social networks, circles close to the pro-Iranian party describe Hadi Matar as “ hero “.
However, many Internet users disapprove and condemn the attack on the British author of Indian origin. A journalist, Dima Sadek, published two superimposed portraits of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, and the ex-head of the al-Quds brigade Qassem Soleimani, assassinated by the Americans, with a comment:satanic verses”named after the famous book by Salman Rushdie.
The Shiite journalist hostile to Hezbollah claimed to have received death threats. The media wondered about the timing of the aggression against Salman Rushdie, and expressed their fears of its repercussions on a Lebanon in crisis.
►Read again: Salman Rushdie’s life is no longer in danger, the assailant presented to a judge