Lawyer for man accused of assaulting Salman Rushdie says client doesn’t want to be offered plea deal

MAYVILLE, NY — The New Jersey man accused of repeatedly stabbing author Salman Rushdie is not interested in a proposed plea deal that would reduce his state prison sentence but expose him to in 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 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 Rushdie as the acclaimed writer was about to address an audience at the facility Chautauqua, in western New York. Rushdie was blinded in one eye. Moderator Henry Reese was also injured.

Chautauqua County Prosecutor Jason Schmidt said Rushdie, who was stabbed more than a dozen times and detailed the near-fatal attack and painful recovery in a memoir titled “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted murder,” was in favor of the proposed “global resolution” in the case, which otherwise could mean two separate trials.

“His preference was for this matter to be settled,” Schmidt said. Without Rushdie’s approval, Schmidt said he would have opposed a reduction in the state’s maximum prison sentence, given the nature of the attack.

“He came to Chautauqua County and then committed this crime, which is not only a crime against a person, but also a crime against the concept of free speech,” Schmidt said.

Matar’s attorney, Nathaniel Barone, said Matar wanted to try his luck at trial.

“He says, ‘What do I have to lose?'” Barone said after the hearing.

Judge David Foley instructed Matar to discuss the offer with Barone and provide a definitive answer at his next appearance on July 2.

Rushdie, who turns 77 on Wednesday, spent years in hiding after Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or decree, in 1989 calling for his death over his novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider it blasphemous. Rushdie slowly began to re-emerge into public life in the late 1990s, and he has traveled freely over the past two decades.

After the onstage attack, investigators said they were trying to determine whether Matar, born nearly a decade after “The Satanic Verses” was released, had acted alone. The federal charge that prosecutors are reportedly considering suggests the possibility that he acted alone. not.

“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,” Barone said.

“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 get a conviction on any type of terrorism-related charge, they’re going to 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. Schmidt said Matar got a pass to the event at which the author was speaking and had arrived from New Jersey a day earlier with a fake ID.

Rushdie, whose works also include “Midnight’s Children” and “Victory City,” wrote in his memoir that he saw a man running toward him in the amphitheater, where he was about to speak about the importance of protect writers from danger.

The author is on the witness list if Matar’s trial proceeds as scheduled in September in Chautauqua County.