Farrukh Dhondy | Will attacker of Rushdie get to politicise trial in martyrdom bid?

“Await the spring and clear skies

And maybe spot the butterflies

But Bachchoo, stop this false pretence

Admit that to you these make no sense

These seasons, skies or winged creatures

Your obsession is with human features

Reading changing expressions on faces

The truths, the lies -- ambivalent traces…”

From Quaid-e-Shazam! by Bachchoo

The trial of Hadi Matar for the attempted murder of Salman Rushdie began this week in New York. The reports of the opening day showed Matar entering the court in a blue shirt. He had several defence lawyers with him and, as did Donald Trump in an earlier trial, and he entered a plea of “Not Guilty”. (err… “Fact!”) That’s a trifle puzzling. What do he or his lawyers expect by entering such a plea, which hundreds of witnesses, apart from the courageous Salman Rushdie, can and will contradict?

Perhaps Matar has convinced his lawyers that he wants a prolonged trial so he can expound his murderous ideas during it? He was apprehended on the spot while he was in the act of stabbing Salman fifteen times, blinding him in one eye and causing him near-fatal injuries. This is something the jury should note so that the defence lawyers can’t spring on the court the fantasy that the defendant appearing in court is not the Hadi Matar who entered the Chautauqua Institution and proceeded to attack the speaker on the platform.

My reason, gentle reader, for suggesting that this fellow Matar wants an extended trial in order to expound his religious “philosophy” or convictions, is that, as he entered the court, he shouted the Palestine supporters’ slogan: “From the river to the sea!”

This indicates that he sees himself not as a blundering and criminal idiot, but as an advocate of what he sees as Islamic causes. He is 27 years old. Salman is 77. Matar wasn’t born when The Satanic Verses was published. The circumstances of his ideological brainwashing, impelling him to murder Salman, may emerge in court. He probably wants to expose some reason for his actions and justify them as fulfilling God’s verdict to kill all apostates.

Whether he’s read the book will also emerge in court during the course of the trial. If I were on the prosecution team, I would certainly ask him if he had.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he says he hasn’t but will follow the Ayatollah Khomeini’s “fatwa” to kill Rushdie and so pave his way to martyrdom in heaven.

What I was eagerly looking for at the start of the trial were challenges from the defence and the prosecution about the constitution of the jury. There was such a contest from both sides at the trial for fraud which Donald Trump faced for falsifying his payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels. The defence didn’t want sturdy Democrats on the jury and the prosecution naturally wanted all “Make America Ga-Ga Again” advocates excluded.

Perhaps such a process took place in Matar’s trial as well, but I could find no reports of it.

Surely, suspecting that Matar might shout his pro-Palestinian slogan as he entered the court, his defence lawyers wouldn’t want any staunch Zionists, or perhaps any citizens of the Jewish faith on the jury? Similarly, the prosecution would want any firm Islamicists to be excluded as the presence of two or three of them could lead to a hung verdict.

That the trial of this maniac is taking place at all is, of course, what should happen in any democratic country -- Salman obviously supports the process as he appeared as a witness and described in detail the horror of the attack. I suppose one has to agree with such due process, even in this extreme case.

The person who wouldn’t have supported or countenanced the idea and process of a fair trial was my late father, an Army man. He was an ardent advocate of short shrift. He would point to some headline in a newspaper about some criminal or unfair activity such as a raid on grain-hoarders who were attempting to raise prices during a famine. His judgment was always: “Line them up against the wall and shoot them!”

Whatever the verdict in Matar’s case, the maximum he will get is a life sentence as New York has abolished the death penalty as unconstitutional.

My father would have been disappointed?

And perhaps Matar himself, since he committed the deadly assault on Salman knowing he’d be caught, will also be disappointed as he may have, through this action in his possibly unrewarding existence, been seeking martyrdom and the seventy promised houris of paradise.

My vague curiosity inclines me to look forward to hearing what Matar or any other witnesses have to say about his murderous motive. Perhaps there’s more to it than a passion to follow the fatwa of Khomeini or the fervent wish for martyrdom.

A plea of insanity from the defence is still possible -- and even if they take the trial in that direction, it may be interesting to hear why the insanity took the direction of a determination to kill the author of The Satanic Verses.

If Matar’s lawyers do resort to such a tactic, his defence will be making a tacit connection between an extreme Islamicist intention and insanity. Would that be welcomed by, say, the Ayatollahs of Iran or the maniacs of the Islamic State, or ISIS?