New York | The man accused of stabbing novelist Salman Rushdie last week in western New York pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and assault charges on Thursday and was held without bail.

Hadi Matar, 24, is accused of wounding Rushdie, 75, on Friday just before the author was to deliver a lecture on stage at an educational retreat near Lake Erie. Rushdie was hospitalised with serious injuries in what writers and politicians around the world decried as an attack on the freedom of expression.

Reuters