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The crazed fanatic who tried to stab Salman Rushdie to death on a New York lecture stage was sentenced Friday to the maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.
Hadi Matar, 26, was found guilty of attempted murder and assault in February over the horror attack that saw him trying to carry out a decades-old fatwa by ambushing the 77-year-old novelist as he was giving a lecture at the Chautauqua Institute in August 2022.
Before sentencing, the knifeman — who repeatedly shouted pro-Palestinian slogans during his trial — stood and made a statement about freedom of speech in which he called Rushdie a hypocrite.
Matar received the maximum 25-year sentence for the attempted murder of Rushdie and seven years for wounding a man who was on stage with him. The sentences must run concurrently because both victims were injured in the same event, District Attorney Jason Schmidt said.
The sentence was handed down after a seven-day trial where Rushdie took the stand to recount the vicious attack — even showing jurors his sightless right eye, which he keeps hidden under darkened eyeglasses.
Rushdie described, too, in harrowing detail how he feared he was dying when his masked attacker plunged the knife into his head and body more than a dozen times just as he was being introduced on stage to give the lecture on writer safety.
Footage of the bloodshed played during the trial showed a knife-wielding Matar approaching from behind before stabbing him in front of the horrified audience.
Rushdie could be seen stumbling forward as Matar clung to him, swinging and stabbing until they both fell to the ground and were separated by witnesses.
In addition to be blinded in his eye, the author suffered nerve and liver damage — all of which he barely survived.
Rushdie — who detailed his recovery in his 2024 memoir “Knife” — spent 17 days at a Pennsylvania hospital in the aftermath of the attack, as well as more than three weeks at a New York City rehabilitation center.
Matar — who was born in America but also has Lebanese citizenship — still faces a federal trial on terrorism-related charges.
Authorities alleged that Matar was trying to carry out a decades-old fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death when he traveled from his home in Fairview, New Jersey, to target the writer.
Matar believed the fatwa, first issued in 1989, was backed by the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah and endorsed in a 2006 speech by the group’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, federal prosecutors charged.
He has pleaded not guilty to providing material to terrorists, attempting to provide material support to Hezbollah and engaging in terrorism transcending national boundaries.
With Post wires
English (US)