Man accused of stabbing Sir Salman Rushdie rejects plea deal

The man charged with stabbing author Sir Salman Rushdie has rejected a plea deal that would have shortened his state prison term but exposed him to a federal terrorism-related charge, the suspect’s lawyer said.

Hadi Matar, 26, has been held without bail since the 2022 attack, in which he is accused of stabbing Sir Salman more than a dozen times and blinding him in one eye as the acclaimed writer was on stage, about to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.

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

The agreement would have had Matar plead guilty in Chautauqua County to attempted murder in exchange for a maximum state prison sentence of 20 years, down from 25 years.

It would have also required him to plead guilty to a federal charge of attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organizstion, which could result in an additional 20 years, lawyers said.

Sir Salman, who detailed the attack and his recovery in a memoir, had spent years in hiding after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, in 1989 calling for his death over Sir Salman’s novel The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims consider blasphemous.

The Indian-born British-American novelist re-emerged into the public in the late 1990s and has travelled freely over the past two decades.

Matar was born in the US but holds dual citizenship in Lebanon, where his parents were born. His mother has said that her son had become withdrawn and moody after visiting his father in Lebanon in 2018.

Sir Salman wrote in his memoir that he saw a man running towards him in the amphitheatre, where he was about to speak about the importance of keeping writers safe from harm.

The author is on the witness list for Matar’s upcoming trial.