The trial begins for Hadi Matar, accused of having stabbed Salman Rushdie: NPR

A trial began for the man accused of violently stabbing Salman Rushdie on stage during a literary event in 2022, who left the British author blind with an eye.

The lawyers of Rushdie and the alleged striker, Hadi Matar, made declarations of opening inside the courthouse of the county of Chaattaqua in Mayville, NY on Monday.

Matar, a 27 -year -old man from Fairview, NJ, pleaded not guilty of attempted murder and aggression.

The trial was postponed last year to give Matar public defender time to read the Memoirs of Rushdie Knife: Meditations after an attempted murderOn the violent attack and its way to recovery.

In August 2022, Rushdie was about to speak to the Chautauqua institution in the west of New York when a man ran on stage and stabbed the author several times. In addition to blind an eye, the knife attack left Rushdie without almost no sensation on the two fingers on his left hand.

Matar was quickly arrested. Two years later, the federal authorities accused Matar of engaging with Hezbollah, a militant group supported by Iran in Lebanon, which is appointed as terrorist organization by the United States

A distinct federal accusation act alleges that Matar provided “material support and resources” at Hezbollah from September 2020, in order to achieve a fatwa on Rushdie calling for his assassination, delivered by the Iranian supreme chief Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989.

The Fatwa was stimulated by the release of Rushdie’s novel in 1988, Satanic verses, that Ayatollah considered blasphemous in its representation of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

Rushdie has spent a large part of his life hiding accordingly. After the death of Ayatollah in 1998, the Iranian government fell from the Fatwa, saying that it would not be supporting or hindering assassination operations in Rushdie “.

According to the indictment, Matar was partly motivated by a 2006 speech by the secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, approving the Fatwa.

Federal accusations linked to terrorism are distinct from accusations of murder and aggression. The two tests are underway. Matar could risk lifetime prison for terrorism offenses, according to the American prosecutor’s office in the western New York district.

Last year, Rushdie released Knifein which he detailed his imminent death experience and the record that it took to him physically and mentally. In an interview with NPR Fresh air About the book, Rushdie recalled the moment of the attack.

“I admit, I sometimes imagined that my assassin gets up in a public or other forum and that I came for me in this way. So my first thought when I saw this murderous form rushing towards me, so it’s you. “He said last April.

“It was my second thought. Why now? It’s been so long. Why now after all these years?” He added.