When the defendant entered the courtroom, he was dressed respectably in a blue button-down shirt and dark slacks. When his presence was announced, he stood up, said “Good morning,” and gave all present a cheery wave.
And thus began one of the most important trials of our age, although everyone involved is doing everything possible to ignore all the reasons why it is so important.
Hadi Matar finally went on trial Tuesday for attempting to murder the novelist Salman Rushdie back in Aug. 2022. There is little, if any, doubt about Matar’s guilt, even though he has pleaded not guilty, for he stabbed Rushdie multiple times in full view of a shocked crowd at the Chautauqua festival.
Matar was supposed to have gone on trial in Jan. 2024, but Rushdie wrote a book about the attack, and Matar’s defense attorney, public defender Nathaniel Barone, received a delay in the trial so that he could review the book.