BEIRUT (Reuters) – The father of a man accused of trying to kill novelist Salman Rushdie has locked himself in his home in southern Lebanon and refuses to speak to anyone, the mayor of Lebanon’s Yaroun municipality, Ali Tohfa, said on Sunday.
Police have identified the suspect in Friday’s attack in New York state as Hadi Matar, 24, from New Jersey. He pleaded not guilty. Matar is of Lebanese origin and his family is from the town of Yaroun in southern Lebanon.
Tuhfa said the parents immigrated to the United States, where Matar was born and raised, but his father returned to Lebanon several years ago.
Tuhfa told Reuters, “His father is currently in the country, but he is locked as he is. He does not accept to give anyone any word or statement. We tried with him and sold people. We knocked on the door. He did not want to talk to anyone.”
An official in the Iranian-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah said on Saturday that the group had no further information about the attack on Rushdie.
“We don’t know anything about this matter and therefore we will not issue any comment,” the official told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.
Hezbollah is backed by Iran, whose former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa in 1989 decrying Rushdie’s blood for atheism.
When asked if Matar or his parents are affiliated with or supportive of Hezbollah, Tuhfa said he had absolutely no information about the parents’ political views or Matar.
Rushdie’s agent and his son said on Sunday that doctors had removed the ventilator from the 75-year-old Indian-born author and that his condition was improving.
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