Prosecutors in Salman Rushdie assault search delay to evaluation about “30,000 information” of proof

The felony case towards the person charged with stabbing writer Salman Rushdie entails a lot potential proof that prosecutors want extra time to evaluation it, the chief prosecutor mentioned Wednesday.

District Attorney Jason Schmidt of Chautauqua County in western New York mentioned his workplace is reviewing about “30,000 information,” with out offering particulars. He mentioned the quantity of fabric entitled him to further time to adjust to a requirement to show over proof to suspect Hadi Matar’s legal professional.

Matar’s lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, questioned the necessity for delay. Prosecutors sometimes should share proof inside 20 days of an arraignment.

“Just as a result of there could also be volumes of discovery on the market, that does not change the truth that that is their job,” Barone mentioned after the listening to, the Observer of Dunkirk reported. “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 Institution ready to be launched for an Aug. 12 dialogue of protections for writers in exile and freedom of expression.

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

Henry Reese, the cofounder of Pittsburgh’s City 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 in a black-and-white striped jail jumpsuit, sporting shackles and a white medical face masks. 

He has pleaded not responsible to prices of tried homicide and assault. Schmidt, the district legal professional, didn’t rule out further prices Wednesday, pending the persevering with investigation.

He is due again in court docket Sept. 13 when a choose will hear arguments on a prosecution request to restrict who’s allowed to evaluation materials disclosed forward of trial, in accordance with the district legal professional. Schmidt didn’t rule out further prices, pending the persevering with investigation.

In a jailhouse interview with The New York Post after his arrest, Matar, who lived along with his mom in Fairfield, New Jersey, spoke about disliking Rushdie and praised Iran’s late supreme chief, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khomeini issued an edict in 1989 demanding Rushdie’s dying 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 traveled freely over the previous twenty years.