Salman Rushdie, right, and his attacker, Hadi Matar. Photo credit.https://thedailyguardian.com

By Nehru Odeh

Hadi Matar, a 27-year-old American-Lebanese man who stabbed Booker Prize award-winning novelist Salman Rushdie multiple times at a cultural event in New York in 2022, faces federal terrorism charges after being handed a 25-year sentence on Friday, May 16 2025, for attempted murder and assault. The attack left the critically acclaimed writer blind in one eye, with multiple injuries.

Matar faces three counts of federal terrorism-related charges in the US, including providing material support to terrorists and committing terrorism that transcends national boundaries. Prosecutors allege the 27-year-old was trying to carry out a decades-old fatwa calling for the author’s death.

“We allege that, in attempting to murder Salman Rushdie in New York in 2022, Hadi Matar committed an act of terrorism in the name of Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organisation aligned with the Iranian regime,” former US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. Iran, however, has denied any link to the attacker and said only Rushdie was to blame for the incident.

Before Friday’s sentencing, Matar also delivered a statement to the court voicing his opposition to Rushdie and his work. “Salman Rushdie wants to disrespect other people,” said Matar. “He wants to be a bully, he wants to bully other people. I don’t agree with that.”

Later, outside the courtroom, defence lawyer Nathaniel Barone took questions about whether his client felt regret or remorse about his actions.

Hadi Matar in court. A Jazeera photo

“ I think that’s a fair question, and I can’t answer that,” he responded. “All I can tell you is that I think that, unfortunately, people make bad decisions, and it’s something that certainly they regret or they’re remorseful about, but they may have a difficult time expressing that for whatever reasons.”

Barone added that he felt Matar would have acted differently in hindsight. “ I know, if he had the opportunity, he would not be sitting where he is sitting today. And if he could change things, he would.”

Matar,  who shouted pro-Palestinian slogans on several occasions during the trial,  stabbed Rushdie approximately 15 times, delivering cuts to his neck, body and head. After being airlifted to a hospital, Rushdie eventually lost sight in one eye. Another speaker — Henry Reese, who runs a nonprofit for writers in exile — also received injuries, including a stab wound.

Rushdie, now 77, testified in the state-level trial against Matar. “He was hitting me repeatedly. Hitting and slashing,” the novelist said.

Matar received the maximum sentence of 25 years in Chautauqua County Court for the attack on Rushdie and seven years for assault on the moderator of the speaking event, who was also on stage. However, Judge David Foley ordered the sentences to run concurrently.

Though the British-American author did not attend the sentencing, he submitted a victim impact statement.  Video of the attack was played during the trial and showed Matar rushing the stage and plunging a knife into Rushdie. His Adam’s apple was lacerated, his liver and small bowel penetrated, and he became paralysed in one hand after suffering severe nerve damage to his arm.

Rushdie was rescued from Matar by bystanders. Last year, he published a memoir called “Knife” in which he recounted his near-death experience. His Adam’s apple was lacerated, his liver and small bowel penetrated, and he became paralysed in one hand after suffering severe nerve damage to his arm. Rushdie was rescued from Matar by bystanders. Last year, he published a memoir called “Knife” in which he recounted his near-death experience.

“It was a stab wound in my eye, intensely painful, after that I was screaming because of the pain,” Rushdie told jurors, adding that he was left in a “lake of blood”.

Still, the intriguing thing about the attack is that he previously told the media he had only read two pages of Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses”, but believed the author had “attacked Islam”.

Matar’s lawyers had sought to prevent witnesses from characterising Rushdie as a victim of persecution following Iran’s 1989 fatwa calling for his murder over supposed blasphemy in the novel.

His publisher announced in March that “The Eleventh Hour,” a collection of short stories examining themes and places of interest to Rushdie, will be released on November 4, 2025.

Rushdie, who was born in Mumbai but moved to England as a boy, was propelled into the spotlight with his second novel “Midnight’s Children” (1981), which won Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize for its portrayal of post-independence India.

Rushdie became the centre of a fierce tug-of-war between free speech advocates and those who insisted that insulting religion, particularly Islam, was unacceptable under any circumstances.

Books and bookshops were torched, his Japanese translator was murdered, and his Norwegian publisher was shot several times.

Rushdie lived in seclusion in London for a decade after the 1989 fatwa, but for the past 20 years – until the attack – he lived relatively normally in New York.