Man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie rejects plea deal involving terrorism charge

Man charged with stabbing author Salman Rushdie has been dismissed a settlement proposal Tuesday’s ruling would have shortened his prison sentence but exposed him to a federal terrorism charge, the suspect’s attorney said.

Hadi Matar, 26, has been held without bail since the 2022 attack, in which he is accused of Stabbing Rushdie more than a dozen times, blinding him in one eye while the acclaimed writer was onstage giving a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.

Matar’s attorney, Nathaniel Barone, confirmed that Matar rejected the agreement Tuesday in Mayville, New York.

The deal would have seen Matar plead guilty in Chautauqua County to attempted murder in exchange for a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, instead of 25. He would also have had to plead guilty to a federal charge of attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, which could result in another 20 years, attorneys said.

Rushdie, who detailed the attack and his recovery in a memoirhad been in hiding for years after the Ayatollah Khomeini has issued a fatwaor edict, in 1989 calling for his death over Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous. The author reappeared in public in the late 1990s and has traveled freely for the past two decades.

Matar was born in the U.S. but has dual citizenship in Lebanon, where his parents were born. His mother has said her son became withdrawn and moody after visiting his father in Lebanon in 2018.

Rushdie wrote in his memoirs that he saw a man running towards him in the amphitheatre, where he was about to speak about the importance of protecting writers from harm. The author is on the witness list for Matar’s upcoming trial.