Hadi Matar, the 27-year-old who nearly killed novelist Salman Rushdie in a brutal knife attack, was sentenced on Friday, almost two years after the shocking assault at a New York cultural center in 2022.
Matar was convicted in February of attempted murder and assault for the attack, which left Rushdie blind in one eye and ended decades of defiant public appearances by the author. Rushdie did not attend the sentencing but submitted a victim impact statement.
This isn’t the end of the legal road for Matar. He now faces federal terrorism charges in a separate case—charges that could land him in prison for life.
The attack was motivated by the decades-old fatwa issued by Iran’s former Supreme Leader over Rushdie’s 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, which hardline clerics labeled blasphemous.
