Rushdie assassin sentenced to 25 years in prison-Diepresse.com
Hadi Matar seriously injured Rushdie with a knife at a reading in 2022. Now he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The assassin Salman Rushdie has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. A court in the US state of New York determined the sentence against the American Hadi Matar, as several media unanimously reported. He can appeal. The 27-year-old stabbed Rushdie in a reading by the world-famous author in August 2022.
The knife cuts his optic nerve – since then the author has been blind in one eye and always wears glasses with a darkened glass. After the attack, Rushdie spent weeks in a hospital and a care facility.
Blood act before hundreds of eyewitnesses
A jury jury in the Chautauqua district in the northwest of the state had already spoken guilty of the 77-year-old in February of the attempted murder. Matar had not guilty. In view of the attack and video recordings committed before hundreds of eyewitnesses, there was no doubt that he committed the crime. Matar’s defense failed to sow doubts that he wanted to commit a deliberate murder.
Rushdie had opposed his assassin in the process of witnessing himself. The 77-year-old described how he experienced the dramatic incident in August 2022. « It was very clear to me that I die, » said Rushdie. « And that was my predominant thought. »
At first he noticed the dark and wild eyes of the approaching attacker, said Rushdie. In the courtroom, the perpetrator Matar sitting on the dock avoided to look at his victim. He himself refused to say. According to the US media, another process at the federal level in connection with terrorist allegations should be more intensive with the search for Matar’s motif.
« /> Rushdie processed the attack on him literarily. Here in 2023. APA / AFP / Kirill Kudryavsev
Rushdie processes Tat in a new book
The literary (“midnight children”) processed the incident in his book “Knife: Thoughts after an attempt to murder” published in April 2024. He had had to fear for his life long before: in 1989 the then Iranian revolutionary leader Ajatollah Khomeini called for the novel « The Satanian Verse », which was perceived as blasphemally. According to the indictment, this was also the reason for Matar’s act. Until then, the assassin lived in the state of New Jersey.
Rushdie continued in court that he first thought that he was being beaten. But then he noticed that « a lot of blood flowed on my clothes ». Again and again the perpetrator stabbed him – in the cheek, neck and his right eye. The author said was « very painful and dangerous ». « After that I screamed in pain. »
He also shows the jury in the process of his destroyed eye. The lasting consequences are not limited to its reduced eyesight. Rushdie complained not to be as energetic and strong as before.
