Man convicted of attempted murder of Salman Rushdie, says ‘Free Palestine’ as he leaves court

A New Jersey man has been convicted of attempted murder for stabbing author Salman Rushdie multiple times on a New York lecture stage in 2022.

Jurors delivered the verdict after deliberating for less than two hours, also finding Hadi Matar, 27, guilty of assault for wounding a man who was on the Chautauqua Institution stage with Rushdie at the time.

Matar ran up to Rushdie as he was about to speak on Aug. 12, 2022, and stabbed him more than a dozen times before a live audience. The attack left the 77-year-old prizewinning novelist blind in one eye.

Rushdie was the key witness during seven days of testimony, describing in graphic detail his life-threatening injuries and long and painful recovery.

Matar, who stood for the verdict, looked down at the defense table but had no obvious reaction when the jury delivered the verdict. As he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, he quietly uttered, “Free Palestine,” echoing comments he has frequently made while entering and leaving the trial.

The judge set sentencing for April 23. Matar could receive up to 25 years in prison, which District Attorney Jason Schmidt noted is the maximum for a conviction on attempted murder in the second degree.

A separate federal indictment alleges that Matar, of Fairview, New Jersey, was motivated to attack Rushdie by a 2006 speech in which the leader of the terror group Hezbollah endorsed a decades-old fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death. Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the fatwa in 1989 after the publication of the novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some Muslims consider blasphemous.

A trial on federal terrorism-related charges will be scheduled in US District Court in Buffalo.