Assailant who stabbed author Salman Rushdie sentenced to 25 years in prison
In 2022, the man who stabbed novelist Salman Rushdie on stage at the Western New York Institute of Arts, leaving him partially blind, was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
A federal jury on July 29 convicted a New Jersey man on terrorism-related charges in connection with the 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie, who was left half-blind in an attack on stage at the New York Institute of the Arts.
Hadi Matar, 28, was convicted of attempting to provide material support to Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization by the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. He was also convicted of engaging in cross-border terrorist acts and providing material support to terrorists.
After about two hours of deliberation, a jury in the U.S. District Court in Buffalo, New York, found Matar guilty on all charges, concluding a trial that began last week. According to evidence presented at trial, Matar spent more than a year researching a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death before attacking the author during a speaking event at New York’s Chautauqua Institute in August 2022.
Prosecutors said Mr. Matar attacked Mr. Rushdie, 79, to carry out a 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, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors also said the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah supported the edict and produced a video about the fatwa that included footage of himself surrounded by symbols related to Hezbollah martyrs.
Mataru was convicted in New York state court in 2025 and is already serving a 25-year prison sentence for attempted murder. The federal conviction carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, and sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 3, according to the Department of Justice.
“This was not an impulsive act. Matar wanted to support a designated foreign terrorist organization in carrying out a violent attack and enforcing a fatwa against the victims,” Jarrod Brown, deputy director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said in a statement. “With today’s sentence, this perpetrator will pay the price for his terrorist act.”
What happened in the Salman Rushdie stabbing in 2022?
Rushdie was attacked on August 12, 2022, as he prepared to give a talk at the Chautauqua Institute in Mayville, New York, about protecting writers from harm. Authorities said Mataru rushed onto the stage and repeatedly stabbed the acclaimed novelist before onlookers could intervene.
During the attack, a small group of people quickly surrounded Rushdie and tried to lift his leg and pump blood into his chest, authorities said. The author was taken by helicopter to a local hospital, and Matar was arrested the same day.
Rushdie suffered multiple stab wounds to his head, neck, torso and left hand, authorities said. The injury left him blind in his right eye and damaged his liver and intestines. He underwent emergency surgery and spent several months recovering.
Henry Rees, co-founder of City of Asylum, a Pittsburgh nonprofit that supports exiled writers, was on stage with Rushdie at the time and was injured in the attack.
During Matar’s state trial in 2025, prosecutors presented video footage of the assault as Rushdie was introduced to the audience. Rushdie testified about the attack, saying she was seriously injured and recalled thinking she was going to die as she lay injured on stage.
The Erie Times News, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported on May 16, 2025, that Matar was sentenced to 25 years in prison and five years of post-release supervision for his conviction for attempted second-degree murder. 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. Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini denounced the book as blasphemous, leading to calls for Rushdie’s death penalty in 1989, according to the Justice Department.
Prosecutors said the fatwa was reaffirmed in 2017 by the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a U.S. and Israeli airstrike in late February after the outbreak of the Iran war. This fatwa was also endorsed in a 2006 speech by Nasrallah.
Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim Kashmiri family in India and later acquired British and American citizenship, spent much of the 1990s living a reclusive life under British police protection, but rose to prominence more than 20 years ago and moved to New York City.
His memoir, “Knives: Meditations After Attempted Murder,” detailing his recovery and emotional healing process from the stabbing, was published in April 2024. A Booker Prize-winning author, Rushdie has published more than 20 books, including the novels Midnight’s Children, The Moor’s Last Sigh, and Shalimar the Clown.
Earlier this month, the author received the Liberatum Cultural Honor Award at a ceremony themed “Freedom of Expression” in London. He is the 14th recipient of the Liberatum Cultural Honor Award, which recognizes both artistic achievement and contributions to cross-cultural understanding.
Contributor: AJ Rao, Erie Times – News;Reuters
