Hadi Matar, the man convicted of stabbing celebrated author Salman Rushdie during a 2022 lecture in New York, was sentenced on Friday to 25 years in prison. The attack left Rushdie blind in one eye and marked a violent episode in the author’s life, which has long been shadowed by controversy.
The 27-year-old Matar was found guilty in February of attempted murder and assault by a jury, news agency AP reported. Rushdie, who was 77 at the time of the attack, did not attend the sentencing hearing held in western New York but submitted a victim impact statement. During the trial, Rushdie provided detailed testimony, recounting how he feared for his life when a masked assailant plunged a knife repeatedly into his head and body while he was being introduced at the Chautauqua Institution to speak on writer safety.
Before the sentence was delivered, Matar made a statement expressing his views on freedom of speech, calling Rushdie a hypocrite. “Salman Rushdie wants to disrespect other people,” Matar said, dressed in white-striped jail clothing and wearing handcuffs, as quoted by AP’s report. “He wants to be a bully, he wants to bully other people. I don’t agree with that.”
Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt announced that Matar received the maximum 25-year term for the attempted murder charge, along with seven years for injuring another man who was present on stage. However, the sentences will run concurrently, as both victims were harmed in the same incident.
In advocating for the maximum sentence, Schmidt said, “He chose this. He designed this attack so that he could inflict the most amount of damage, not just upon Mr. Rushdie, but upon this community, upon the 1,400 people who were there to watch it.”
Public defender Nathaniel Barone highlighted Matar’s clean criminal record prior to the attack and questioned whether the audience members should be considered victims. He suggested a reduced sentence of 12 years would be appropriate, noting, “Every day since then, for the last couple of years, this case has been an international publicity sponge. There was no presumption, ever, of innocence for Mr. Matar from the very beginning.”
Rushdie’s injuries were severe; he spent 17 days hospitalised in Pennsylvania and over three weeks in a New York City rehabilitation centre. The author chronicled his recovery in his 2024 memoir, Knife.
Hadi Matar To Face Federal Trial On Terrorism-Related Charges
Matar is set to face a federal trial on terrorism-related charges. While the first trial concentrated primarily on the stabbing itself, the upcoming trial will explore the motive behind the attack.
Authorities have stated that Matar, a US citizen from Fairview, New Jersey, was motivated by a decades-old fatwa issued in 1989 by Iran’s then-leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which called for Rushdie’s death over his novel The Satanic Verses, considered blasphemous by some Muslims. The fatwa was reportedly supported by the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah and reaffirmed in a 2006 speech by the group’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, according to federal prosecutors.
Matar pleaded not guilty to charges of providing material support to terrorists and engaging in terrorism transcending national boundaries.
Video evidence presented at the trial showed Matar approaching Rushdie from behind and stabbing him multiple times as the audience reacted in shock. Despite the brutal attack, Rushdie managed to stand and walk briefly before both men fell to the ground and were separated by onlookers.
The jury took less than two hours to deliver its verdict in Matar’s first trial.
