The 26 -year -old Hadi Matar is accused of repeatedly stabbing the older writer during a lecture from 2022.
The trial of a man who is supposed to start in the United States two years ago because of attempted murder, in the United States
The selection of the jury should begin on Tuesday for the trial against Hadi Matar, the stabbed The 77-year-old writer in the face, neck and stomach during a public lecture in the state of New York in August 2022. The public prosecutor and the defense suggested that the process could be difficult, whereby the global environment contributes to “prejudices” against the To promote Islam.
The attack on Rushdie, which was previously the goal of death threats about his writings on Islam, led to the loss of his right eye and liver damage.
The 26-year-old Matar has not guilty that he had charged second degree and attacked second degree on attempted murder and attacking second degree because of the attack on the Chautauqua institution in the west of New York.
The process was delayed twice, most recently after his lawyer had unsuccessfully tried to bring it to another event location, and said Matar could not get a fair legal proceedings in Chautauqua. He rejected a plea for a 20-year prison sentence.
If Matar is convicted of attempted murder, he will face up to 25 years of prison. However, double citizens of the United States and Lebanon are also accused of federal costs that accuse him of terrorism and material support for the Lebanese group Hezbollah supported by Iran, which the United States describe a “terrorist organization”.
The prosecutors argue in the federal case that Matar’s alleged attack is not by accident, but motivated by a Fatwa or a threat of death, which was issued by the leadership of Iran against Rushdie about the 1988 novel of the author, the Satanian verses, which many Muslims as blasphone hold.
After the attack, the suspect told the media that he had traveled from his house in New Jersey after advertising the Rushdie event because he did not like the writer and said Rushdie attacked Islam.
Rushdie is said to be one of the first witnesses to testify in the process. The author has published a memoir since the attack and said in interviews He believed that he would die on stage.
Growing up in a Muslim Kashmiri family, the writer with several incumbent writers in 1989 was forced to be killed in a decade of hiding when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then the top leader of Iran, asked.
This provoked a storm of protest in the western world to support the freedom of speech. The Iranian government said in 1998 that it would no longer get the Fatwa back, and Rushdie ended his years as a hermit.
The prosecutors in the process said that the jury will probably not hear from the Fatwa and that the presentation of a motif was unnecessary, since many of the attack in the audience were observed and recorded in the audience.
Instead, they spoke of the challenge with which they will choose a fair and impartial jury because the incident deals with public relations.
Matar’s lawyer said that he fears that the current global unrest could have a negative impact and cite concerns about the “inherent and implicit tendency” towards Arab Americans and the Muslim or Arab American community in the Chastauqua district.
With the tensions about religious motivated violence that runs high, the judge has ordered both sides to avoid statements for the media.
