After an eight-day trial, the man who stabbed author Salman Rushdie in August 2022 was found guilty Friday of attempted murder and assault.
Hadi Matar, 27, of New Jersey, was on trial in Chautauqua County Court in western New York, accused of rushing onto the stage where Rushdie was about to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution and stabbing the 77-year-old writer more than a dozen times in the neck, stomach, chest, hand and right eye. The attack left Rushdie partially blind.
Rushdie took the stand on the second day of testimony. Sitting about 20 feet from Matar, he said that he feared he was dying during the attack and that he initially thought he was being struck with a fist.
“But I saw a large quantity of blood pouring onto my clothes,” Rushdie said. “He was hitting me repeatedly. Hitting and slashing.”
The Indian-born British American author detailed his months of recovery in a 2024 memoir, "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder."
Rushdie spent years in hiding after the Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, in 1989 calling for his death after the publication of his novel "The Satanic Verses," which is considered blasphemous by some Muslims.
In court on Friday, Matar’s attorney, Andrew Brautigam, argued that the prosecution wasn’t able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Matar had intended to kill Rushdie, emphasizing that an investigation into his background wasn’t conducted and that Rushdie himself described the attack as an assault rather than an attempted murder.
To counter, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt played a slow-motion video of the attack, showing the assailant dash toward Rushdie, The Associated Press reported.
“I want you to look at the unprovoked nature of this attack,” Schmidt told the jurors. “I want you to look at the targeted nature of the attack. There were a lot of people around that day, but there was only one person who was targeted.”
Matar, a dual American and Lebanese citizen, declined to testify in his defense earlier Friday, according to The Associated Press. He has been held without bail since the attack.
The courtroom was packed as the lawyers presented their closing arguments Friday afternoon. The jury began deliberating shortly after, reaching a verdict about two hours later.
Matar could face up to 25 years in prison, NBC affiliate WGRZ reported. Sentencing is set for April 23.
Brautigam did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
