Attack on Salman Rushdie: Hadi Matar Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison

The man who stabbed the writer during a public event in 2022 receives the maximum sentence. Salman Rushdie was severely injured, losing an eye and the use of a hand.

Hadi Matar, a 27-year-old American of Lebanese descent, was sentenced on Friday, May 16, to 25 years in prison for stabbing author Salman Rushdie in August 2022 during a literary conference in Chautauqua, New York. The sentence was handed down by the county courthouse three months after a jury found him guilty of attempted murder and assault.

The attack occurred in front of a crowd of nearly a thousand people attending a discussion on freedom of expression. Armed with a long-bladed knife, Matar lunged at the author of The Satanic Verses, stabbing him repeatedly before being subdued by attendees. The assault also injured Henry Reese, co-founder of a support program for persecuted writers.

Rushdie Severely Maimed

Now 77, Salman Rushdie—an Indian-born author with British and American citizenship—came close to death. The attack left him blind in his right eye, paralyzed in one hand, and with multiple internal injuries, including to his liver and small intestine. His Adam’s apple was also slashed. “I saw myself dying,” Rushdie testified during the trial in February, adding that he found himself “in a pool of blood” and “screaming in pain.”

Rushdie later recounted the assault in a powerful memoir titled Knife, in which he reflects on the moment his life was shattered, the long road to recovery, and the lasting physical and emotional scars.

An Ideological Motive Still Unclear

In an interview from prison with the New York Post shortly after the attack, Hadi Matar declined to say whether he was influenced by the fatwa issued in 1989 by Ayatollah Khomeini following the publication of The Satanic Verses, considered blasphemous by Iran’s Islamic regime. He admitted having read only two pages of the book but said he believed Rushdie had “attacked Islam.”

During the trial, Matar remained largely silent, at times provocative, shouting pro-Palestinian slogans in court. He also faces separate federal charges for “an act of terrorism on behalf of Hezbollah,” the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group—though Tehran has denied any involvement in the stabbing.