Hadi Matar: "I attacked Rushdie because he attacked Islam"

"He attacked Islam, he's not a good person."

Salman Rushdie's assailant said this in an exclusive New York Post interview from prison.

"I don't like that man, he attacked the beliefs of Muslims, their system of values", said

, saying "respect the ayatollah, I think he is a great person".  

's attacker

denied having been in contact with Iranian Pasdaran but admitted, in the interview to the Post, that he was "inspired" by the attack by watching the writer's videos on Youtube.

The attacker of Salman Rushdie, who

admits to having read only "a couple of pages" of the "

and assures that he has decided to go to Chautauqua after reading a tweet in which news of the writer's visit was announced.

Hadi Matar reconstructed that he took a bus to Buffalo the day before the assault and then a ride on the Lyft service to Chautauqua, where he wandered around doing nothing and slept in a meadow.

"I don't like Rushdie as a person. I don't think he's a good person. He attacked Islam, the creed of religion," the 24-year-old from New Jersey, a fanatic inspired by

who had pronounced the fatwa against Rushdie in 1989. "I respect Ayatollah. I think he is great. That's all I'll say," he added, after pointing out that he had seen numerous videos of Rushdie's lectures. on Youtube.

Matar, a native of southern Lebanon, did not answer questions about his 2018 trip to the Middle East to meet his father.

A visit that, as his mother

, "changed him".

Since then he spent his days locked in the cellar surfing the Internet.