Hadi Matar, the man who stabbed and partially blinded prize-winning novelist Salman Rushdie at an event in New York, has been found guilty of attempted murder.
Jurors delivered the verdict on Friday for Matar’s assault on Rushdie on stage at an arts institute’s event in August 2022.
The Satanic Verses author, 77, was stabbed with a knife multiple times in the head, neck, torso and left hand, blinding his right eye and damaging his liver and intestines, and requiring emergency surgery and months of recovery.
Matar, 27, can be seen in videos of the attack rushing the Chautauqua Institution’s stage as Rushdie was being introduced to the audience for a talk about keeping writers safe from harm. Some of the videos were shown to the jury during the seven days of testimony.
Matar was found guilty of attempted murder in the second degree as well as assault in the second degree for stabbing Henry Reese, the co-founder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, a nonprofit group that helps exiled writers, who was conducting the talk with Rushdie that morning.
He will be sentenced on April 23 and faces up to 25 years in prison.
Nathaniel Barone, a public defender representing Matar, said his client was disappointed by the verdict.
United Arab Emirates Dirham Exchange Rate
