New York: The man who repeatedly and nearly fatally stabbed the renowned novelist Salman Rushdie in 2022 was found guilty of attempted murder and assault on Friday.
Hadi Matar, 27, of Fairview, New Jersey, was convicted for a crime witnessed by hundreds, captured on video and the subject of “Knife,” Rushdie’s best-selling memoir about the attack and its aftermath.
Sentencing is scheduled for April 23. Matar faces up to 32 years in prison.
During his closing argument on Friday morning, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt showed jurors slow-motion video footage of a bloody, chaotic attack. On Aug. 12, 2022, Rushdie was scheduled to speak at the Chautauqua Institution, a few miles from the courthouse.
“If you’re going to stab somebody 15 or so times about the face and neck, this might result in a fatality,” Schmidt said. “I submit to you that was the intent. We can’t read Mr. Matar’s mind when he did what he did. But we can see what he did.”
