The man who stabbed author Salman Rushdie on stage, causing permanent blindness in one eye, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Hadi Matar, 27, was convicted earlier this year of attempted murder and assault for his brutal attack on Salman Rushdie. Before his sentencing, he addressed the court, criticising Rushdie’s views on free speech and calling the author a hypocrite.
“Salman Rushdie wants to disrespect other people,” said Matar, dressed in white-striped jail clothing and wearing handcuffs. “He wants to be a bully, he wants to bully other people. I don’t agree with that.”
Rushdie did not attend the sentencing in person but submitted a victim impact statement. During the trial, the 77-year-old author served as the key witness, recalling how he believed he was dying when a masked man repeatedly stabbed him in the head and body as he was about to speak at the Chautauqua Institution on writer safety.
The incident took place in August 2022, when the author was on stage addressing an audience.
Hadi Matar received maximum sentence
Matar received the maximum sentence of 25 years for the attempted murder of Rushdie, along with seven years for injuring a man who was on stage with him.
According to Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt, the sentences will run concurrently since both victims were harmed in the same incident.
In seeking the maximum penalty, Schmidt told the judge, “He chose this. He designed this attack so that he could inflict the most amount of damage, not just upon Mr. Rushdie, but upon this community, upon the 1,400 people who were there to watch it.”
Public defender Nathaniel Barone highlighted Matar’s previously clean criminal record and argued against considering the audience members as victims, suggesting a 12-year sentence instead.
“Every day since then, for the last couple of years, this case has been an international publicity sponge,” Barone said. “There was no presumption, ever, of innocence for Mr. Matar from the very beginning.”
Rushdie spent 17 days in a Pennsylvania hospital and over three weeks in a New York City rehabilitation center. The author of Midnight’s Children, The Moor’s Last Sigh, and Victory City detailed his recovery in his 2024 memoir, Knife.
With agencies inputs
