(MAYVILLE, N.Y.) — A jury has convicted a New Jersey man for attempted murder in the 2022 stabbing attack on author Salman Rushdie while the author was on stage at a speaking event in upstate New York.
Hadi Matar was found guilty of second-degree attempted murder and assault in connection with the attack at the Chautauqua Institution in southwestern New York.
The jury began deliberating around midday Friday before reaching their verdict within two hours.
Jurors heard starkly different accounts of the assault, which occurred on Aug. 12, 2022, while Rushdie was speaking before an audience at the education center.
District Attorney Jason Schmidt played slow-motion video showing Matar emerging from the audience, sprinting toward Rushdie, and launching a violent attack. Schmidt described the stabbing as a deliberate, targeted act, arguing that striking someone 10 to 15 times in the face and neck made death a foreseeable outcome. A trauma surgeon testified that Rushdie would have died without immediate medical intervention.
The defense, led by Andrew Brautigan, countered that prosecutors failed to prove Matar intended to kill Rushdie. The defense characterized the incident as a chaotic, noisy outburst rather than a calculated murder attempt. Public defender Nathaniel Barone argued that Matar was overcharged due to Rushdie’s celebrity, noting that he used knives rather than a gun or bomb and that Rushdie’s vital organs were not harmed.
Rushdie, 77, took the stand during the trial, vividly describing the attack that blinded him in one eye. He described his attacker’s eyes as “very ferocious” as he approached, before “hitting and slashing” him in his chest, torso, waist and eye as he struggled to get away, according to The Associated Press.
“It occurred to me that I was dying. That was my predominant thought,” Rushdie said, according to the AP.
Rushdie recounted the attack in his book, “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,” which was published last year.
Henry Reese, who was moderating the event and was wounded in the attack, also took the stand during the trial.
Reese told jurors he initially thought someone was running toward Rushdie as “a prank” but “at some point it became real, and I got up and tried to stop the attacker,” according to the AP.
The assailant was tackled by bystanders and pinned to the stage.
Matar did not testify and the defense called no witnesses during the two-week trial.
He rejected a plea deal ahead of the trial.
Matar still faces federal terrorism charges in connection with the attack. He was indicted by a grand jury on three counts, including attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and providing material support to terrorists. The indictment alleges that he “knowingly did attempt to provide material support and resources” to Hezbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and “had engaged, and was engaging, in terrorism.”
Matar was also charged with an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries for the attack against Rushdie. The indictment alleges that he “did knowingly attempt to kill, and did knowingly maim, commit an assault resulting in serious bodily injury, and assault with a dangerous weapon.”
He has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.
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