MAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP) – Salman Rushdie's plans to publish a book about the attempted attempt on his life in 2022 could delay the accused attacker's trial, which is scheduled to begin next week. Lawyers made the announcement Tuesday.
Hadi Matar, who is accused of repeatedly stabbing Rushdie as he was being introduced for a lecture, is entitled to the manuscript and related materials as part of his trial preparation, Chautauqua County Judge David Foley said at trial. I mentioned this at a previous press conference.
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Foley asked Martal and his lawyers to decide by Wednesday whether to postpone the trial until he receives the book in advance from the publisher or after it is released in April. Gave. Defense attorney Nathaniel Barron said after court that he supported the postponement but would consult with Matar.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin on January 8th.
“It's not just the books,” Barone said. “I'm entitled to every little note Rushdie wrote down. Every discussion, every recording, everything he did regarding this book.”
Rushdie, who was blinded in his right eye and damaged his left hand in the August 2022 attack, announced in October that he had written a memoir about the attack, “Knives: Meditations After Attempted Murder.'' pre order. Preparations for the trial were already well underway when the lawyers involved in the case learned about the book.
District Attorney Jason Schmidt said Rushdie's attorneys denied prosecutors' requests for copies of the manuscript, citing intellectual property rights. Schmidt downplayed the book's relevance in the upcoming trial, considering the attack was witnessed by a large live audience and Rushdie himself could testify.
“There was a recording” of the assault, Schmidt said.
Mattar, 26, of New Jersey, has been free on bail since he was arrested shortly after Rushdie was stabbed in front of a stunned audience at the Chautauqua Institute, a summer arts and education retreat in western New York. He is being detained without.
Mr. Schmidt said Mr. Matar was on a “mission to kill Mr. Rushdie” when he ran from the audience to the stage and stabbed him more than a dozen times before being subdued by onlookers.
The motive for the attack has not been disclosed. In a prison interview with the New York Post after his arrest, Mattar praised late Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini and said Rushdie had “attacked Islam.”
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Rushdie, 75, was arrested after Khomeini issued a fatwa, a decree calling for Khomeini's death in 1989 following the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims consider blasphemous. , spent years in hiding. For the past 20 years, Rushdie has traveled freely.
Matar was born in the United States but holds dual citizenship in Lebanon, where his parents were born. His mother said her son had changed since visiting his father in Lebanon in 2018, becoming withdrawn and moody.
