The man who stabbed author Salman Rushdi and blinded him in one eye was sentenced to a maximum possible period of 25 years in prison in the case.
Friday’s ruling hearing was the culmination of a relatively quick trial that began on February 4th.
There was little ambiguity about the central event underlying the incident. In August 2022, 24-year-old Hadi Mathal ran through the stages of the amphitheater where Rushdee was giving public lectures for the Chautauca Association in New York.
Mathal stabbed Rushdi about 15 times and delivered the cut to his neck, body and head. After being airlifted to the hospital, Rushdy eventually lost sight in one eye. Another speaker – Henry Reese, who runs a nonprofit for an exiled writer, was also injured, including stab wounds.
Rushdie, now 77, testifies at a state-level trial against Matar. “He was hitting me over and over, he was hitting me and slashing,” the novelist said.
He added that he initially thought he was being hit by a fist rather than a knife. It was only later that he realized the seriousness of his situation. “I saw a lot of blood poured into my clothes.”
The injury caused Rushdee to undergo painful surgery, including sealing his blind eyes. He spent several months recovering. “I’m not as energetic as I used to be. I’m not as physically strong as I used to be,” he told the court.
On February 21, after less than two hours of deliberation, a ju judge in western New York discovered that Matar was found guilty of attempted murder and assaulting Reese’s injuries in an assault on Rushdee.
At a hearing on Friday, Matar received 25 years for attempted murder and seven years in attacks on Reese, which was offered simultaneously after the attacks took place.
Rushdi, an American novelist in the UK, was born in India to a Muslim family. His book has been widely praised. The Midnight children of his novels received the Booker Prize, the highest literary honor given annually for works of English fiction.
However, in 1988 his fourth novel, “The Devil’s Poem,” sparked enduring controversy, especially due to the texts considered blasphemous by Muslims. By 1989, Iranian Ayatollah Ruhola Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the death of Rushdhi.
The announcement brought Rushdy to hide and the British government assigned him 24-hour protection. The fatal protest was accompanied by novel publications, and bookstores faced violent attacks with people close to Rushdy.
Before Friday’s ruling, Mathal also filed a statement to the court expressing his opposition to Rushdi and his work.
“Salman Rushdi wants to downplay others,” Mathal said. “He wants to be a bully, he wants to bully others. I don’t agree with that.”
Later outside the courtroom, defense attorney Nathaniel Barone asked whether his client regrets or regrets about his actions.
“I think that’s a fair question and I can’t answer it,” he replied. “What I can say to you is that unfortunately people have made bad decisions. It’s certainly something you regret or regret, but for some reason it can be difficult to express it.”
Barone added that he felt that Matal acted differently in hindsight. “If he had the opportunity, he wouldn’t be sitting where he sat today, and if he could change things, he would.”
Mathal’s defense team had planned to appeal the verdict, claiming that he had not proven his intention to kill Rushdi beyond reasonable doubt.
Barone also questioned the intense level of scrutiny in the case, calling it a “promotional sponge.” He claimed that his client had been denied the presumption of innocence for the suspect.
However, the prosecution praised the outcome of the sentencing hearing as justice for pain that Rushdy continues to endure.
“He’s been traumatized. He has nightmares about what he’s going through,” Chatouka County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said after the hearing.
“Obviously, this is a major setback for individuals who were beginning to emerge in the later years of life into society after hiding after Fatowa.”
In explaining to the judge why he was pushing the biggest sentence, Schmidt said that Mathal “designed the attack to make it the most damage not just to Mr Rushdy, but to this community, to the 1,400 people there who were there to see it.”
Separately, Matar, now 27, faces three counts of federal terrorism-related accusations in the United States. This provides material support to terrorists and commits terrorism that transcends borders.
“When he tried to kill Salman Rushdy in New York in 2022, Hadi Mathal claimed he committed a terrorist act in the name of Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization in line with the Iranian regime,” former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. However, Iran has denied any involvement in Matar’s attack on Rushdee.
Meanwhile, Rushdy conveyed his experiences from the attack in a memoir called Knife: Meditation after Attempt Murder.