Salman Rushdie striker sentenced to 25 years in prison

A man from New Jersey, who stabbed and partially blinded the novelist Sir Salman Rushdie at a lecture stage in New York, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Friday.

The 27 -year -old Hadi Matar was convicted of attempted murder and attack earlier this year.

Sir Salman was on stage to speak to the public in August 2022, when he was stabbed repeatedly in the face and neck. The attack left him blind to one eye, damage to the liver and a paralyzed arm caused by damage to the nerves of his hand.

The attack came 35 years after the controversial novel of Sir Salman “The Satanic Poems”, which has long made it the purpose of the threats of death for his depicting the prophet Mohammed.

Matar received the maximum 25-year sentence for Sir Salman’s attempted murder.

He was also found guilty of an attack on the wounding of the person who questioned Sir Salman, Henry Reese, and sentenced to seven years plus three years after the release of this attack.

The sentences should be executed simultaneously, as both victims were injured in the same event, said Cautauka County District Prosecutor Jason Schmidt on Friday.

Before he was condemned, Matar stood and made a statement of freedom of speech in which he called Rushdie a hypocrite, according to the Associated Press.

“Salman Rushdie wants to disregard other people,” said Matar, dressed in a white stripe prison clothing and handcuffed. “He wants to be a bully, he wants to harass other people. I disagree with that.”

Sir Salman was not in court for his attacker’s sentence on Friday.

Matar was convicted of attempted murder and attack in February 2025, after an intense process during which Sir Salman described in detail the moment when he felt sure he would die.

During the two -week process, he testified that he saw a man rushing to him while he was on stage at the Institute of Historical Arts in Chautau, New York.

He said his attacker’s eyes “were dark and looked very fierce.”

Sir Salman told the court that he did not initially realize that he had been stabbed, thinking instead of being hit.

Matar stabbed Sir Salman 15 times in total, including the cheek, chest, eye, neck and thigh.

Prosecutors say the attack is directed.

“There were many people that day, but there was only one person who was directed,” said prosecutor’s lawyer Jason Schmidt, said after the jury.

Defense lawyer Andrew Brautigan claims that prosecutors have failed to prove that Matar intends to kill Sir Salman.

Matar, who pleaded guilty, did not testify in his defense. His lawyers did not call their own witnesses.

“I don’t think he’s a very good person,” Matar told the author in New York’s history after 2022. “He is someone who attacked Islam.”

Matar praised Iran’s High Leader Ayatola Homeini for calling for Sir Salman’s execution.

The attack took place about 35 years after the publication of the controversial novel of Sir Salman “Satanic poems”.

The novel, inspired by the life of Muslim Prophet Mohammed, has elicited outrage among some Muslims who consider its content as blasphemy.

Sir Salman faced countless threats to death and was forced to hide nine years after Iran’s religious leader issued a Fatva – or a decree – calling for the author’s death because of the book.

But in recent years, the author said he believed that the threats against him had declined.

Just before the attack, Sir Salman told a German magazine that he felt that his life was “relatively normal”.

The British-Indian novelist later described his experience and a long way to recovering in a memoir called “Knife: Meditations” after attempting to kill.