Rushdie Attacker Sentenced, Calls Author a 'Bully'

The man who nearly killed Salman Rushdie in 2022 received a 25-year sentence on Friday, but not before he got in a public slam against the author. Hadi Matar, 27, spoke briefly in court and called Rushdie a hypocrite and a "bully," reports the New York Times. "Salman Rushdie wants to disrespect other people," said Matar, per the AP. "He wants to be a bully, he wants to bully other people. I don't agree with that." Rushdie did not appear at the sentencing in Mayville, New York, but he testified during the trial about the trauma of the attack, which left him blind in one eye.

The jury convicted Matar in February of attempted murder and assault after he stabbed Rushdie more than a dozen times during a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York. Matar received the maximum penalty for attempted murder, plus seven years for injuring another man onstage; the sentences will run concurrently. Authorities say Matar sought to enact a decades-old fatwa against Rushdie, initially issued in 1989 by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini after publication of The Satanic Verses—a novel some Muslims view as blasphemous. Matar next faces federal terrorism charges, per NPR. (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)