MAYVILLE, N.Y.: The New Jersey man on trial in the 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie declined to testify in his defense Thursday as his lawyers rested their case without calling any witnesses.
“No, I do not,” Hadi Matar, 27, said when asked by Chautauqua County Judge David Foley whether he wished to take the stand.
Earlier Thursday, prosecutors called a forensics expert as their final witness, wrapping up seven days of witness testimony, most notably from Rushdie himself.
The lawyers are scheduled to deliver closing arguments Friday, followed by jury deliberations.
Matar is on trial in Chautauqua County Court in western New York on charges of attempted murder and assault for the attack at the nearby Chautauqua Institution that left Rushdie, 77, blind in one eye and with other serious injuries. City of Asylum founder Henry Reese, who was appearing with Rushdie, suffered a gash above his eye.
Throughout the trial, Matar, who is from Fairview, New Jersey, was often seen taking notes and speaking with his attorneys. On several occasions while being brought in or out of the courtroom, he declared, “Free Palestine” to news cameras. But defense attorneys had declined to say whether he intended to testify.
Although Matar’s lawyers declined to call any witnesses of their own, they sought to challenge prosecution witnesses as part of a strategy intended to cast doubt on whether Matar intended to kill, and not just injure, Rushdie. The distinction is important for an attempted murder conviction.
Matar came armed with a knife, not a gun, attorneys said, and Rushdie survived the stabbing, which they noted witnesses had described as a “skirmish” or “scuffle.”
“We’ve argued from the beginning that they have not, at least in our opinion, proven any type of intent to murder,” Public Defender Nathaniel Barone told reporters outside the courtroom.
He suggested Matar likely would have faced a lesser charge of assault were it not for Rushdie’s public profile.
“We think that it became an attempted murder because of the notoriety of the alleged victim in the case,” Barone said.
Rushdie was stabbed and slashed more than a dozen times in the head, throat, torso, thigh and hand in an unprovoked attack as he prepared to participate in a discussion about keeping writers safe. He spent 17 days in a Pennsylvania hospital and more than three weeks at a New York City rehabilitation center.
Matar also faces trial in US District Court in Buffalo on a separate federal indictment charging him with attempting to provide material support to the militant group Hezbollah.
The man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie declines to take the stand as the defense rests
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The man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie declines to take the stand as the defense rests
Zelensky says peace proposals to end the war in Ukraine could be presented to Russia within days
- But issues like the status of Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia remain unresolved. US-led peace efforts are gaining momentum
- But Russian President Vladimir Putin may resist some proposals including security guarantees for Ukraine
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says proposals being negotiated with US officials for a peace deal to end his country’s nearly four-year war with Russia could be finalized within days, after which American envoys will present them to the Kremlin before further possible meetings in the United States next weekend.
Zelensky told reporters late Monday that a draft peace plan discussed with the US during talks in Berlin earlier in the day is “very workable.” He cautioned, however, that some key issues — notably what happens to Ukrainian territory occupied by invading Russian forces — remain unresolved.
U.S-led peace efforts appear to be picking up momentum. But Russian President Vladimir Putin may balk at some of the proposals thrashed out by officials from Washington, Kyiv and Western Europe, including postwar security guarantees for Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated Tuesday that Russia wants a comprehensive peace deal, not a temporary truce.
If Ukraine seeks “momentary, unsustainable solutions, we are unlikely to be ready to participate,” Peskov said.
“We want peace — we don’t want a truce that would give Ukraine a respite and prepare for the continuation of the war,” he told reporters. “We want to stop this war, achieve our goals, secure our interests, and guarantee peace in Europe for the future.”
American officials on Monday said that there’s consensus from Ukraine and Europe on about 90 percent of the US-authored peace plan. US President Donald Trump said: “I think we’re closer now than we have been, ever” to a peace settlement.
Plenty of potential pitfalls remain, however.
Zelensky reiterated that Kyiv rules out recognizing Moscow’s control over any part of the Donbas, an economically important region in eastern Ukraine made up of Luhansk and Donetsk. Russia’s army doesn’t fully control either.
“The Americans are trying to find a compromise,” Zelensky said, before visiting the Netherlands on Tuesday. “They are proposing a ‘free economic zone’ (in the Donbas). And I want to stress once again: a ‘free economic zone’ does not mean under the control of the Russian Federation.”
The land issue remains one of the most difficult obstacles to a comprehensive agreement.
Putin wants all the areas in four key regions that his forces have seized, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory.
Zelensky warned that if Putin rejects diplomatic efforts, Ukraine expects increased Western pressure on Moscow, including tougher sanctions and additional military support for defense. Kyiv would seek enhanced air defense systems and long-range weapons if diplomacy collapses, he said.
Ukraine and the US are preparing up to five documents related to the peace framework, several of them focused on security, Zelensky said.
He was upbeat about the progress in the Berlin talks.
“Overall, there was a demonstration of unity,” Zelensky said. “It was truly positive in the sense that it reflected the unity of the US, Europe, and Ukraine.”
