The accused refused to stab the British novelist of Indian origin, Salman Rushdie, in 2022, to submit his testimony to defend himself, on Thursday, while defense lawyers ended their defense without calling any witnesses.
“No, I do not wish,” said Hadi Matar, 27, who is in New Jersey, said.
Prosecutors summoned, earlier Thursday, a legal doctor as a last witness, to end the seven days in which the certificates were heard, including from Rushdie himself who was attacked during a lecture in New York about 3 years ago.
The American of Lebanese origin, Hadi Matar, is being tried on charges of attempting to kill and attack in the attack that took place near the Chatakua Foundation, and resulted in the left eye to Rashidi, 77, as well as other injuries to him.
The defendant faces a separate trial for “terrorism”, after he was paid before the local courts in his innocence from the charges of “attempt to kill” and “assault”, and faces the possibility of sentences to 25 years in prison.
During the mentioned lecture, Rushdie received about 15 stabs in the head, neck, trunk and left hand, which led to the loss of his right eye and the damage of the liver and intestine.
Rushdie had spent most of the nineties hiding in the United Kingdom, after receiving death threats because of his “demonic verses” published in 1988.
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