The trial of Hadi Matar, charged with attempting to murder author Salman Rushdie, begins Tuesday with jury selection. Matar stabbed Rushdie multiple times in August 2022 during a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution. Rushdie, who has faced death threats since 1988 for his novel 'The Satanic Verses,' is expected to testify. Matar pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault.
The trial of Hadi Matar, the man accused of attempting to murder author Salman Rushdie, is scheduled to begin on Tuesday with jury selection. Matar, 26, was captured on cellphone videos storming the stage at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York in August 2022 as Rushdie was being introduced to the audience. The 77-year-old Rushdie was stabbed multiple times, leading to the loss of his right eye and liver damage.
Matar has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault. Rushdie, who has faced death threats since the 1988 publication of his novel 'The Satanic Verses,' is expected to be among the first witnesses to testify at the trial. The author, in a memoir about the attack, stated that he believed he was going to die on the Chautauqua Institution stage. Rushdie, raised in a Muslim Kashmiri family, went into hiding under British police protection in 1989 after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran's supreme leader, declared 'The Satanic Verses' blasphemous. Khomeini's fatwa, or religious edict, called for the killing of Rushdie and anyone involved in the book's publication, resulting in a multi-million-dollar bounty. The Iranian government announced in 1998 that it would no longer support the fatwa, allowing Rushdie to emerge from seclusion and become a regular presence at literary events in New York City, where he resides. Following the attack, Matar told the New York Post that he traveled from his New Jersey home after seeing an advertisement for the Rushdie event because he disliked the author, claiming Rushdie had attacked Islam. Matar, a dual citizen of the United States and Lebanon, expressed surprise in the interview that Rushdie survived. Matar's trial has been delayed twice, most recently after his defense lawyer's unsuccessful attempt to move it to a different location, arguing that Matar could not receive a fair trial in Chautauqua. The trial is taking place at the Chautauqua County Court in Mayville, a town of approximately 1,500 people near the Canadian border. If convicted of attempted murder, Matar faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. Matar is also facing federal charges where prosecutors in the US attorney's office in western New York accused him of attempting to murder Rushdie as an act of terrorism and providing material support to the armed group Hezbollah in Lebanon, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the US.
SALMAN RUSHDIE HADI MATAR TRIAL ATTEMPED MURDER CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION THE SATANIC VERSES
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