Accused Salman Rushdie stabber Hati Matar says ‘Free Palestine’ as he heads into court

 

The radical accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie blurted “Free Palestine” as he walked into the courtroom on Monday.

Hati Matar, the 26-year-old New Jersey man who allegedly tried to kill the writer in upstate New York in 2022, made the statement as he walked by reporters at the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, New York — but otherwise remained quiet.

He proceeded to take his seat, where he scribbled notes and whispered to one of his lawyers while Judge David Foley explained court proceedings to the 16 jurors.

Matar stormed a stage and stabbed Rushdie at least 10 times during a literary seminar at the local Chautauqua Institution in August 2022, leaving the 77-year-old novelist blind in one eye and suffering from nerve and liver damage.

He’s pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault.

Matar’s defense team on Monday attempted to argue that the trial should be delayed for a third time because his lead attorney, Nathaniel Barone, is in the hospital.

Foley denied the motion, saying Matar’s other attorneys are capable and they should have “anticipated situations like this” because Barone has been ill for about a year.

Matar, who was born in America but is a dual Lebanese citizen, told The Post in a jailhouse interview days after the stabbing, he was inspired to attack Rushdie because he’s  “someone who attacked Islam, he attacked their beliefs, the belief systems.”

Rushdie’s controversial novel “The Satanic Verses,”  has sparked outrage among some Muslim communities since it was published in 1988 for its depictions of Islam and the prophet Muhammad.

The late Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issuing a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989 over the book.

Matar told The Post he’d only read a couple pages of the book, but doesn’t “think [Rushdie] is a very good person.”

“I don’t like him. I don’t like him very much,” he said.