Controversial author Salman Rushdie’s attacker sentenced to 25 years in prison

Report by Safarti Tarjuman International Desk

Hadi Matar, the attacker who stabbed controversial British-American author Salman Rushdie at a public event in 2022, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison by a New York court. The attack partially blinded Rushdie and seriously injured another person.

The sentence was handed down on Friday in Chautauqua County Court, where Matar, a 27-year-old US citizen from Fairview, New Jersey, was found guilty earlier this year. The jury found him guilty of attempted murder after reviewing chilling video evidence and seven days of testimony.

Matar charged onto the stage at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York just as Rushdie, 77, was due to give a lecture on the author’s safety. The attack, which shocked a global audience, was caught on video and shown in part during the trial.

District Attorney Jason Schmidt confirmed that Rushdie continues to deal with the trauma of the incident.

Rushdie remained in danger for decades after the release of his controversial novel *The Satanic Verses* in 1988, which sparked outrage and even a fatwa from then-Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.