(Mayville) New Jersey man accused of repeatedly stabbing author Salman Rushdie not interested in proposed deal with prosecutors that would reduce his state prison sentence but 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.
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 attempt, was 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 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,” 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?’” Mr. Barone argued after the hearing.
Judge David Foley asked Matar to discuss the offer with his lawyer and respond at his next court appearance on July 2.
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 release of the novel The Satanic Verses, had acted alone.
“The approach is that this was a terrorist organization that was supported by countries in the Middle East, and that’s how they’re handling it,” Barone said. “The federal government takes the position that there was support before this happened,” he said. “I think in order for them to charge or get a conviction on any type of terrorism-related charge, they’re going to have to show that there was prior support as part of a conspiracy.”
Barbara Burns, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, declined to comment on the potential terrorism charge, saying 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 City of Victory, 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 protecting writers from danger.
The author is on the witness list if Matar’s trial proceeds as scheduled in September in Chautauqua County.
