(Mayville) The New Jersey man accused of repeatedly stabbing author Salman Rushdie is not interested in a proposed deal with prosecutors that would reduce his state prison sentence, but would expose him to federal prison on a separate terrorism-related charge, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Hadi Matar, 26, sat silently in Chautauqua County Court as lawyers presented a proposal they said was worked out between state and federal prosecutors and agreed to by Salman Rushdie over the past few months .
The deal would require Matar to plead guilty in Chautauqua County to attempted murder in exchange for a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, up from 25 years. He would then also plead guilty to a previously unfiled federal charge of attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, which could result in an additional 20 years, lawyers said.
Matar, who has pleaded not guilty, has been held without bail since his arrest in 2022 after prosecutors said he attacked Mr. Rushdie as the writer prepared to address an audience at the facility Chautauqua, in western New York. Salman Rushdie lost an eye. Moderator Henry Reese was also injured.
Chautauqua County Prosecutor Jason Schmidt said the perpetrator, who was stabbed more than a dozen times and detailed the near-fatal attack and painful recovery in a memoir titled The knife: Reflections following an assassination attemptwas in favor of the proposed global resolution, because otherwise there could be two separate trials.
“His preference was for this matter to be resolved,” the prosecutor said. Without Mr. Rushdie’s approval, Jason Schmidt said he would have opposed a reduction in the state’s maximum prison sentence, given the nature of the attack.
“He arrived in Chautauqua County and then committed this crime, which is not only a crime against a person, but also a crime against the concept of freedom of expression,” he lamented.
Matar’s lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, said his client wanted to try his luck at trial.
“He asks himself: ‘What do I have to lose?’” said Me Barone after the hearing.
Judge David Foley asked Hadi Matar to discuss the offer with his lawyer and provide his response at his next court appearance on July 2.
Potential terrorism charge
Salman Rushdie, who turns 77 on Wednesday, spent years in hiding after Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 calling for his death for alleged blasphemy in his novel The Satanic Verses. He lived in seclusion and with 24-hour security. But for years he moved around with few restrictions, until the stabbing at Chautauqua Institution.
After the onstage attack, investigators said they were trying to determine whether Matar, born nearly a decade after the novel’s release The Satanic Verseshad acted alone.
“The approach is that this was a terrorist organization supported by countries in the Middle East, and this is how they are handling the situation,” Ms.e Barone. “The federal government considers that there was support before this happened,” he said. “I think in order for them to be able to charge or obtain a conviction on any type of terrorism-related charge, they will have to demonstrate that there was prior support for a conspiracy. »
Barbara Burns, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, declined to comment on the potential terrorism charge, explaining that the office neither confirms nor denies investigations.
Matar was born in the United States, but has dual citizenship in Lebanon, where his parents were born. His mother said her son changed, becoming withdrawn and moody, after visiting his father in Lebanon in 2018. Jason Schmidt argued that Matar was given a pass to the event at which the author spoke and had arrived from New Jersey a day earlier with a fake ID.
Salman Rushdie, whose works also include Midnight’s Children And The city of victorywrote in his memoirs that he saw a man running toward him in the amphitheater, where he was about to speak about the importance of protecting writers from danger.
The author is on the witness list if Matar’s trial proceeds as scheduled in September in Chautauqua County.