Man who stabbed Salman Rushdie

Mayville, NY – A jury in West -New York found a man from New Jersey on Friday, who was guilty of attempted murder on the stabbing of the author Salman Rushdie, who sometimes let him blind.

The sentence of the man, Hadi Matar, 27, followed shattering testimony of Rushdie, 77, who said he was hit by the dark, wild eyes of his attacker. He told the jury that he first had the feeling that he was beaten, but then he was found that he was “pouring out a very large amount of blood”, which spilled on his clothes.

On August 12, 2022, Rushdie was to lead a lecture at the Chautauqua institution, a cultural retreat, about how the United States were a safe port for artists in exile.

Shortly before Rushdie was supposed to speak, a man who wore dark clothes and a face mask hurried onto the stage and repeatedly stabbed him.

Matar was also found guilty for assault Ralph Henry Reese, the moderator of the conversation, and one of the founders of a project that offers writers. The jury thought less than two hours on Friday.

Matar, who is to be convicted on April 23, faces up to 32 years in prison. He will also be subject to charges in connection with the federal terrorism.

Nathaniel L. Barone II, Matar’s Matar Matar lawyer, said at a press conference after the verdict was disappointed, but relocated his energy for preparation for the conviction.

The attack occurred in front of more than 1,000 people. After that, Rushdie was flown to a hospital with a trauma clinic in Erie, Pennsylvania. He spent 17 days there before he was relocated to Nyu Langone’s rehabilitation center in New York City, where he stayed for almost a month.

During his certificate, Rushdie pointed to areas of his body in which he was injured: cheek, breast, neck, hand, waist. He raised the unmistakable glasses that he has worn since the attack, a clear and a black one, in public to protect his damaged eye.

“I’m not as energetic as before,” said Rushdie. “I’m not as physically strong as before.”

Rushdies memoirs about the attack and its consequences “Messers: Meditations after an attempt to murder” was the finalist for the National Book Award for non -fiction books last year.

The trial began on February 10 in the courthouse of Chautauqua County in Mayville, New York, a village about an hour south of Buffalo. The defense team did not call witnesses and Matar rejected it to say. Throughout the process, he said “Free Palestine” when he entered and left the courtroom.

In final arguments, Andrew Brauigam, a defender, said the jury: “Mr. Matar didn’t have it and never intended to kill Salman Rushdie. “He said they did not know what Matar’s” conscious goal was, what his goal was, which motivated him “.

Matar lived in New Jersey at the time of the attack and worked in a Marshall clothing business. He had moved from Lebanon to the USA with his family when he was a child. In the years before the attack, he became increasingly isolated and concentrated intensively on Islam.

Rushdie had under an Iranian death sentence since 1989 after the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verse”, which fictionalized parts of the life of the Prophet Muhammad.

Many Muslims found some of the representations offensive and even blasphemy. The top Iran leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, published a FATWA that Muslims ordered to kill rush and make a price of several million dollars.

Iran has contested any participation in the attack on Rushdie.

Matar spent most of the experiment with his head below and wrote on a yellow notepad. Rushdie’s wife – poet and writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths – sat in the second row of the courtroom when her husband said.

Gregory Beard, a dreamach surgeon, said that the cuts to Rushdie’s neck area was near the large blood vessels and that he had the risk of bleeding to death. There were also cuts to rushdies liver, small intestine and large intestine.

During his final argument, Jason Schmidt, the district prosecutor, asked the jury whether it was predictable to “stab someone about the face and neck for 15 times, and that this might lead to a death”.

“We can’t read Mr. Matar’s mind, but we can watch his actions,” said Schmidt.

He added that Matar “came dangerously close” to kill Rushdie.

At a press conference after the judgment, Schmidt said that the Chautauqua institution saved Rushdie’s life. “The entire community deserves justice here, and I am glad that we could achieve this,” he said.

He said he hoped that Matar had spent at least 25 years in prison.

Pen America, a group of freedom of speech, said in a statement that “violence can never be the answer to ideas”.

It added: “This case is a strong memory of the permanent threats with which writers who challenge authority and orthodoxy are exposed.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.