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A New Jersey man, Hadi Matar, charged with the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie during a 2022 public appearance in New York, has turned down a plea agreement, according to legal representatives on Tuesday. The incident, which took place at the Chautauqua Institution, saw Rushdie sustain multiple stab wounds in what was described by authorities as a deliberate assault.
Matar faces charges of second-degree attempted murder and assault but has entered a plea of not guilty. At a recent appearance in Chautauqua County court, he refused a plea deal that would address both state and possible federal charges, said the Chautauqua County District Attorney’s Office. The rejected deal proposed a 20-year prison term in exchange for a guilty plea to the primary charge of second-degree attempted murder, reduced from the maximum 25-year sentence.
The agreement also entailed a federal charge that would add an extra 10 to 20 years to his prison term, to run consecutively with the state sentence. This could have led to a total imprisonment of 30 to 40 years plus lifetime supervision after release.
Matar’s public defender, Nathaniel Barone II, proposed a 15-year sentence instead, which was not accepted by the state. Barone mentioned that the contemplated federal charge concerned providing material support to a designated terrorist organization, though it had not been formally filed yet.
As the plea negotiations fell through, jury selection for the state trial is set for September 10, as indicated by court records. Matar is currently held at the Chautauqua County Jail.
The attack left Rushdie severely injured, resulting in blindness in his right eye, a tragedy he explores in his upcoming book “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.” The state trial was delayed from its initial January schedule to allow time for the defense to subpoena drafts of Rushdie’s memoir.
Further discussions on the defense’s motion to limit evidence from the book are slated for July 18.