New York | New Jersey man convicted of attempted murder in the stabbing of Salman Rushdie

MAYVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — A New Jersey man was convicted Friday of attempted murder for stabbing author Salman Rushdie multiple times on a New York lecture stage in 2022.

Jurors delivered the verdict after deliberating for less than two hours, also finding Hadi Matar, 27, guilty of assault for wounding a man who was on the Chautauqua Institution stage with Rushdie at the time.

Matar ran up to Rushdie as he was about to speak on Aug. 12, 2022, and stabbed him more than a dozen times before a live audience. The attack left the 77-year-old prizewinning novelist blind in one eye.

Rushdie was the key witness during seven days of testimony, describing in graphic detail his life-threatening injuries and long and painful recovery.

Matar, who stood for the verdict, looked down but had no obvious reaction when the jury delivered it. 

As he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, he quietly uttered, “Free Palestine,” echoing comments he has frequently made while entering and leaving the trial.

The judge set sentencing for April 23. Matar could receive up to 25 years in prison, which District Attorney Jason Schmidt noted is the maximum for a conviction on attempted murder in the second degree. Matar was disappointed, according to his public defender, Nathaniel Barone. “But I thought, quite frankly, that he was well prepared for the verdict, regardless of what it was,” Barone said.

In his comments following the verdict, Schmidt said video evidence helped make the case “rock solid.”

“We had a number of different angles to show the jurors,” he said. “It really is as compelling as it can possibly get.”

Schmidt added: “Mr. Matar came into this community as a visitor. And really, it’s my job to make sure that he stays a resident of New York state for the next 25 years.”

During his closing argument, assistant public defender Andrew Brautigan told the jury that prosecutors had not proved that Matar intended to kill Rushdie. The distinction is important for an attempted-murder conviction.

Schmidt said while it’s not possible to read Matar’s mind, “it’s foreseeable that if you’re going to stab someone 10 or 15 times about the face and neck, it’s going to result in a fatality.”

Rushdie, who has been famous worldwide since the novel “Midnight’s Children” was published more than 40 years ago, told jurors he thought he was dying when a masked stranger ran onto the stage and stabbed and slashed at him until being tackled by bystanders. Rushdie showed jurors his now-blinded right eye, usually hidden behind a darkened eyeglass lens.

Schmidt reminded jurors Friday about the testimony of a trauma surgeon, who said Rushdie’s injuries would have been fatal without quick treatment.

He also slowed down video showing Matar approaching the seated Rushdie from behind and reaching around him to stab at his torso with a knife. Rushdie raises his arms and rises from his seat, walking and stumbling for a few steps with Matar hanging on, swinging and stabbing until they both fall and are surrounded by onlookers who rush in to separate them.

Rushdie is seen flailing on the ground, waving a hand covered in bright red blood. Schmidt freezes on a frame showing Rushdie, his face also bloodied, as he’s surrounded by people.

The video, recorded by the Chautauqua Institution’s house cameras, also picked up gasps and screams from audience members who had been seated to hear Rushdie speak with City of Asylum Pittsburgh founder Henry Reese about keeping writers safe. Reese suffered a gash to his forehead, leading to the assault charge against Matar.

From the witness stand, institution staff and others who were present on the day of the attack pointed to Matar as the assailant.

Rushdie spent 17 days at a Pennsylvania hospital and more than three weeks at a New York City rehabilitation center. He detailed his long and painful recovery in his 2024 memoir, “Knife.”

“The conviction of Salman Rushdie’s attacker is an important step toward justice for this unparalleled writer and reaffirms that violence can never be the answer to ideas,” PEN America said in a written statement Friday, noting that the case was “a stark reminder of the enduring threats faced by writers who challenge authority and orthodoxy.”

“We must remain vigilant in defending the right to speak, write, and think, without fear,” the statement read. Rushdie is a former president of the nonprofit literary and free expression organization.

Throughout the trial, Matar often took notes with a pen and sometimes laughed or smiled with his defense team during breaks in testimony. His lawyers declined to call any witnesses of their own and Matar did not testify in his defense.

As he has previously, Barone said Friday that Matar likely would have faced a lesser charge of assault were it not for Rushdie’s celebrity.

“Unfortunately, the notoriety of Mr. Rushdie certainly didn’t help in how this case may have been presented,” he said. “And we believe that it was overcharged.”

A separate federal indictment alleges that Matar, of Fairview, New Jersey, was motivated to attack Rushdie by a 2006 speech in which the leader of the militant group Hezbollah endorsed a decades-old fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death. Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the fatwa in 1989 after publication of the novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous.

Rushdie spent years in hiding. But after Iran announced that it would not enforce the decree, he had traveled freely over the past quarter century.

A trial on the federal terrorism-related charges will be scheduled in U.S. District Court in Buffalo.

Source: The Associated Press, Staff, February 21, 2025

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde