Current:Home > InvestTrial postponed for man charged in 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie due to forthcoming memoir -InvestAI
Trial postponed for man charged in 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie due to forthcoming memoir
View
Date:2025-04-19 23:02:00
MAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — The New Jersey man charged with stabbing “The Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie is allowed to seek material related to Rushdie’s upcoming memoir about the attack before standing trial, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Jury selection in Hadi Matar’s attempted murder and assault trial was originally scheduled to start Jan. 8.
Instead, the trial is on hold, since Matar’s lawyer argued Tuesday that the defendant is entitled by law to see the manuscript, due out in April 2024, and related material before standing trial. Written or recorded statements about the attack made by any witness are considered potential evidence, attorneys said.
“It will not change the ultimate outcome,” Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said of the postponement. A new date has not yet been set.
Matar, 26, who lived in Fairview, New Jersey, has been held without bail since prosecutors said he stabbed Rushdie more than a dozen times after rushing the stage at the Chautauqua Institution where the author was about to speak in August 2022.
Rushdie, 75, was blinded in his right eye and his left hand was damaged in the attack. The author announced in Oct. 2023 that he had written about the attack in a forthcoming memoir: “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.”
With trial preparations under way at the time, the prosecutor said he requested a copy of the manuscript as part of the legal discovery process. The request, he said, was declined by Rushdie’s representatives, who cited intellectual property rights.
Defense attorney Nathaniel Barone is expected to subpoena the material.
Rushdie’s literary agent did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Penguin Random House, the book’s publisher, also didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.
The prosecution on Tuesday downplayed the book’s significance to the trial, noting the attack was witnessed — and in some cases recorded — by a large, live audience.
Onstage with Rushdie at the western New York venue was Henry Reese — 73, the co-founder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum — who suffered a gash to his forehead.
Rushdie, who could testify at the trial, spent years in hiding after the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 edict, a fatwa, calling for his death after publication of the novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous. Over the past two decades, Rushdie has traveled freely.
A motive for the 2022 attack has not been disclosed. Matar, in a jailhouse interview with The New York Post after his arrest, praised Khomeini and said Rushdie “attacked Islam.”
veryGood! (58)
Related
- Why members of two of EPA's influential science advisory committees were let go
- 2 endangered panthers found dead on consecutive days in Florida, officials say
- Baby shark born to single mother – without a father – after apparent parthenogenesis
- Keke Palmer Files for Custody of Her and Darius Jackson's Baby Boy
- Spooky or not? Some Choa Chu Kang residents say community garden resembles cemetery
- US 'drowning in mass shootings': Judge denies bail to Cornell student Patrick Dai
- Abortion providers seek to broaden access to the procedure in Indiana
- Trump suggests he or another Republican president could use Justice Department to indict opponents
- Opinion: Gianni Infantino, FIFA sell souls and 2034 World Cup for Saudi Arabia's billions
- Tuohy Family Reveals How Much Michael Oher Was Paid for The Blind Side
Ranking
- Paula Abdul settles lawsuit with former 'So You Think You Can Dance' co
- What Biden's executive order on AI does and means
- Barbra Streisand on her long-awaited memoir
- British judge says Prince Harry’s lawsuit against Daily Mail publisher can go to trial
- Google unveils a quantum chip. Could it help unlock the universe's deepest secrets?
- Video shows man crashing car into Florida sheriff's deputies, injuring 2
- What Biden's executive order on AI does and means
- If you think Airbnb, Vrbo are cheaper than hotels, you might want to think again!
Recommendation
House passes bill to add 66 new federal judgeships, but prospects murky after Biden veto threat
Imprisoned Algerian journalist remains behind bars despite expected release
Abigail Breslin sued by 'Classified' movie producers after accusation against Aaron Eckhart
Federal judge puts Idaho’s ‘abortion trafficking’ law on hold during lawsuit
Nearly half of US teens are online ‘constantly,’ Pew report finds
UVM honors retired US Sen. Patrick Leahy with renamed building, new rural program
Federal judge puts Idaho’s ‘abortion trafficking’ law on hold during lawsuit
Fran Drescher tells NPR the breakthrough moment that ended the Hollywood strikes