The crazed fanatic who tried to stab Salman Rushdie to loss of life on a New York lecture stage was sentenced Friday to the utmost sentence of 25 years in jail.
Hadi Matar, 26, was discovered responsible of tried homicide and assault in February over the horror assault that noticed him making an attempt to hold out a decades-old fatwa by ambushing the 77-year-old novelist as he was giving a lecture on the Chautauqua Institute in August 2022.
Earlier than sentencing, the knifeman — who repeatedly shouted pro-Palestinian slogans throughout his trial — stood and made an announcement about freedom of speech during which he referred to as Rushdie a hypocrite.
Matar acquired the utmost 25-year sentence for the tried homicide of Rushdie and 7 years for wounding a person who was on stage with him. The sentences should run concurrently as a result of each victims had been injured in the identical occasion, District Legal professional Jason Schmidt mentioned.
The sentence was handed down after a seven-day trial the place Rushdie took the stand to recount the vicious assault — even displaying jurors his sightless proper eye, which he retains hidden below darkened eyeglasses.
Rushdie described, too, in harrowing element how he feared he was dying when his masked attacker plunged the knife into his head and physique greater than a dozen instances simply as he was being launched on stage to offer the lecture on author security.
Footage of the bloodshed performed throughout the trial confirmed a knife-wielding Matar approaching from behind earlier than stabbing him in entrance of the horrified viewers.
Rushdie may very well be seen stumbling ahead as Matar clung to him, swinging and stabbing till they each fell to the bottom and had been separated by witnesses.
Along with be blinded in his eye, the writer suffered nerve and liver injury — all of which he barely survived.
Rushdie — who detailed his restoration in his 2024 memoir “Knife” — spent 17 days at a Pennsylvania hospital within the aftermath of the assault, in addition to greater than three weeks at a New York Metropolis rehabilitation heart.
Matar — who was born in America but additionally has Lebanese citizenship — nonetheless faces a federal trial on terrorism-related prices.
Authorities alleged that Matar was making an attempt to hold out a decades-old fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s loss of life when he traveled from his residence in Fairview, New Jersey, to focus on the author.
Matar believed the fatwa, first issued in 1989, was backed by the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah and endorsed in a 2006 speech by the group’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, federal prosecutors charged.
He has pleaded not responsible to offering materials to terrorists, making an attempt to supply materials help to Hezbollah and fascinating in terrorism transcending nationwide boundaries.
With Put up wires
