Prosecutors in Salman Rushdie assault need delay to evaluation proof

The prison case in opposition to the person charged with stabbing creator Salman Rushdie includes a lot potential proof that prosecutors want extra time to evaluation it, the chief prosecutor mentioned Wednesday.

District Legal professional Jason Schmidt of Chautauqua County in western New York mentioned his workplace is reviewing about “30,000 recordsdata,” with out offering particulars. He requested for extra time to adjust to a authorized requirement to show over proof to suspect Hadi Matar’s legal professional, the Observer of Dunkirk reported.

Matar’s lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, questioned the necessity for delay.

“Simply because there could also be volumes of discovery on the market, that doesn’t change the truth that that’s their job,” Barone mentioned after the listening to. “They higher get to it and we’re entitled to it.”

Prosecutors say Matar, 24, stabbed Rushdie within the neck, abdomen, chest, hand and proper eye at a literary occasion in western New York, earlier than onlookers intervened. Rushdie had been sitting in a chair onstage on the Chautauqua Establishment ready to be launched for an Aug. 12 dialogue of protections for writers in exile and freedom of expression.

The creator was recovering in a Pennsylvania hospital within the days after the assault. A Rushdie household lawyer didn’t instantly reply to a phone message searching for an replace on his situation.

Henry Reese, the cofounder of Pittsburgh’s Metropolis of Asylum, was onstage with Rushdie and suffered a gash to his brow, bruises and different minor accidents.

Matar, who has been held with out bail since his arrest, arrived at Chautauqua County Court docket in a black-and-white striped jail jumpsuit, sporting shackles and a white medical face masks.

The choose reserved resolution on whether or not to grant prosecutors extra time to share proof, and ordered the edges to return Sept. 13.

Matar, who lived together with his mom in Fairview, New Jersey, is charged with tried homicide and assault. He has pleaded not responsible. Schmidt, the district legal professional, didn’t rule out extra prices Wednesday, pending the persevering with investigation.

In a jailhouse interview with The New York Publish after his arrest, Matar spoke about disliking Rushdie and praised Iran’s late supreme chief, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini issued an edict in 1989 demanding Rushdie’s loss of life over his novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims think about blasphemous. Iran has denied involvement within the assault.

Rushdie spent years in hiding however had travelled freely over the previous 20 years.

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