The 27-year-old New Jersey man who was convicted in February of stabbing and partially blinding famed novelist Salman Rushdie was hit with the maximum sentence of 25 years in prison on Friday.
Hadi Matar was convicted of second-degree attempted murder for the August 2022 stabbing attack that also injured the event’s moderator, Henry Reese, the co-founder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, which helps exiled writers, Reuters reported. Rushdie — who sparked the ire of the Iranian regime with his 1988 novel, “The Satanic Verses” — was stabbed by Matar between 10 and 15 times in the head, neck, torso, and left hand at a New York arts institute. After the book was published, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, calling for Rushdie’s assassination.
Video captured Matar rushing the stage where Rushdie spoke during a writers’ event focused on protecting exiled writers….
