Hadi Matar, the man convicted of stabbing Salman Rushdie during a lecture in New York in 2022, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for attempted murder and assault, with the sentences running concurrently. Rushdie, who was severely injured and left blind in one eye, provided a victim impact statement but did not attend the sentencing, while Matar defended his actions by criticizing Rushdie’s views on free speech. Matar now faces federal charges related to terrorism, stemming from his belief that he was fulfilling a decades-old fatwa against Rushdie, issued after the publication of “The Satanic Verses.”
