The man accused of attempting to murder author Salman Rushdie is expected to reject the offer of a plea deal in court, his lawyers said on Tuesday.
According to reports, the deal would see Hadi Matar, of New Jersey, receive a maximum state prison sentence of 20 years for attempted murder as opposed to 25 years if convicted at trial.
He would have to admit to a different federal charge as part of the deal, attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organisation, which could see him face an additional sentence of 20 years.
The deal was agreed upon by state and federal prosecutors and later approved by Rushdie himself.
Matar, who had the deal outlined to him at Chautauqua County Court, is said to have rejected this offer, reportedly telling his lawyer: “What have I got to lose?”
Hadi Matar, then 24, is accused of attempting to kill the author, who had long-standing threats against his life, in August 2022 ahead of a lecture on free speech at the Chautauqua Institute, New York.
The attack, which saw Rushdie stabbed several times, left him blind in one eye and unable to use one of his hands.
Rushdie was the subject fatwa - assassination order - that was placed upon his head by the leader of Iran in 1989 and later removed over allegedly blasphemous content in his novel The Satanic Verses.
It was deemed offensive by some Muslims for its allegedly blasphemous depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.
Matar, who has been held without bail since the incident, denies all charges against him.
However, he is reported to have expressed support for the Iranian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The acclaimed author and proponent of free speech later recounted the attack in the memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, which was published in April of this year.
Rushdie wrote: “It felt like something coming out of the distant past and trying to drag me back in time, if you like, back into that distant past, in order to kill me.
“When somebody is attacking you with a knife, 27 seconds is a really long time.”
The Booker Prize-winning author added: “He had a knife; I had a microphone. I was 75; he was 24. I couldn’t have run away from him and I certainly couldn’t have fought him, even if he hadn’t had a knife. I’ve more or less blacked out the pain. It was as close as you could come to dying without actually dying. I got a good look at it.”
Jason Schmidt, the county’s district attorney, said: “[Matar] came into Chautauqua county and then committed this crime, which is not just a crime against a person, but it’s also a crime against a concept of freedom of speech.”
Matar will next appear in court on 2 July, when he is expected to reject the plea deal.
