Assailant who stabbed author Salman Rushdie sentenced to 25 years
The man who stabbed and partially blinded novelist Salman Rushdie onstage at a Western New York arts institute in 2022 was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
A federal jury on July 29 convicted a New Jersey man on terrorism-related charges connected to the 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie, who was left partially blind after he was attacked on stage at a New York arts institute.
Hadi Matar, 28, was found guilty of attempting to provide material support to Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. He was also convicted of engaging in an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries and providing material support to terrorists.
Following about two hours of deliberations, a U.S. District Court jury in Buffalo, New York, found Matar guilty on all counts, concluding a trial that began last week. According to evidence presented at the trial, Matar spent more than a year researching a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death before attacking the author during a speaking event at the Chautauqua Institution in New York in August 2022.
Prosecutors said Matar attacked Rushdie, 79, in an effort to carry out the decades-old fatwa over his 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses.” Before the attack, Matar discussed the fatwa against Rushdie and Hezbollah’s support for it with individuals in Iran, Australia and Canada, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors also said he created videos about the fatwa that incorporated footage of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah endorsing the edict and surrounded himself with symbols associated with Hezbollah martyrs.
Matar is already serving a 25-year prison sentence for attempted murder following his 2025 conviction in New York state court. The federal convictions carry a maximum penalty of life in prison, with sentencing set for Nov. 3, according to the Department of Justice.
“This was not an impulsive act; Matar conducted a violent attack in support of a designated foreign terrorist organization and wanted to carry out a fatwa against the victim,” Jarod Brown, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said in a statement. “With today’s verdict, this assailant will pay the price of engaging in terrorism.”
What happened in the 2022 stabbing of Salman Rushdie?
Rushdie was attacked on Aug. 12, 2022, as he prepared to speak at the Chautauqua Institution in Mayville, New York, about keeping writers safe from harm. Authorities said Matar rushed the stage and repeatedly stabbed the acclaimed novelist before onlookers intervened.
During the attack, authorities said a small group of people immediately surrounded Rushdie and held up his legs to try and send blood to his chest. The author was taken by helicopter to a local hospital, and Matar was arrested the same day.
Rushdie suffered multiple stab wounds to the head, neck, torso and left hand, according to authorities. The injuries left him blind in his right eye and caused damage to his liver and intestines. He underwent emergency surgery and spent months recovering.
Henry Reese, the cofounder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, a nonprofit group that helps exiled writers, was on stage with Rushdie at the time and also was injured during the attack.
During Matar’s state trial in 2025, prosecutors presented video footage showing the assault as Rushdie was being introduced to the audience. Rushdie testified about the attack, describing severe injuries and recalling that he believed he was dying as he lay wounded on stage.
The Erie Times-News, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported that Matar was sentenced on May 16, 2025, to 25 years in prison and five years of post-release supervision on a second-degree attempted murder conviction. He also received a concurrent sentence of seven years in prison and three years of post-release supervision for second-degree assault.
Who is Salman Rushdie?
Rushdie has faced death threats since the publication of his fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses,” which was banned in many countries. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, denounced the book as blasphemous, leading to a call for Rushdie’s death in 1989, according to the Department of Justice.
That fatwa was reaffirmed in 2017 by the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes at the outset of the Iran war in late February, prosecutors said. The fatwa was also endorsed in a 2006 speech by Nasrallah.
Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim Kashmiri family in India and later obtained British and U.S. citizenship, spent most of the 1990s in seclusion under the protection of the British police but adopted a higher profile more than two decades ago, moving to New York City.
A memoir detailing his stabbing, recovery and emotional healing process, “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,” was published in April 2024. Rushdie, a Booker Prize-winning writer, has published over 20 books, including novels “Midnight’s Children,” “The Moor’s Last Sigh” and “Shalimar the Clown.”
Earlier this month, the author received the Liberatum Cultural Honour in London during a ceremony themed “Freedom of Expression.” He is the 14th recipient of the Liberatum Cultural Honour, which recognizes both artistic achievements and contributions to cross-cultural understanding.
Contributing: A.J. Rao, The Erie Times-News; Reuters