Man who stabbed Salman Rushdie in 2022 convicted of terrorism | Salman Rushdie

A man was found guilty on Wednesday of terrorism charges in 2022 Salman Rushdiea writer who faced death threats for decades after his book The Satanic Verses.

The court found Hadi Matar guilty of all charges against him, including committing international terrorism.

Matar declined to take the stand, as did his attorney, Nathaniel Barone to say earlier this week: “At this point, security is in place.”

Matar, 28, is already serving a 25-year sentence in New York for attempted murder at the August 2022 stadium event. The federal sentence carries a life sentence.

Opponents to say Matar shared fake videos before the incident and contacted an Iranian man who said he knew “where to find Rushdie”. It is also said that Matar asked if the fatwa against Rushdie was still valid.

Rushdie, who was about to speak about the protection of writers, was cut 15 times in front of a shocked audience. He was seriously injured.

Speaking from the scene last February, Rushdie said: “I became aware of the mass of blood I was lying in. My period was very cloudy, I had pain in my eye and in my hand, and it occurred to me clearly that I was dying.”

Following the attack, which also injured Ralph Henry Reese, Rushdie’s case manager, Rushdie lost the sight in his right eye.

According to federal decision, Matar’s motivation to kill Rushdie came from a 2006 conversation with the head of Hezbollah at the time, Hassan Nasrallah. In the speech, Nasrallah acknowledged the fatwa, or death warrant, imposed on Rushdie by Iran’s religious leaders more than 35 years ago because of his book. Satan’s verses.

In 2022, following the Rushdie stabbing, Matar he agreed by reading “several pages” of the book that Iran’s religious leaders denounced as blasphemous.

In April 2024, Rushdie, who was born in India and moved to Britain as a teenager, wrote a murderous memoir, which he called The Knife.

“When I finished writing the memoir, immediately, it was as if a door in my head opened and the stories came flooding back,” Rushdie. he said at a book festival at Tulane University in New Orleans in March.

“I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to write fiction anymore… because of the depression and the overwhelming impact of what happened,” she added.

Rushdie also said she was tired of being everyone’s “Barbie”, adding: “It’s a story I want to change.”

“I don’t feel metaphorical… I feel real. I feel like I’m a recruiter trying to make his career,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story