The person who attacked writer Salman Rushdie, blinding him in a single eye, was sentenced on Friday to 25 years in jail, the native prosecutor stated.
Decide David Foley gave an unrepentant Hadi Matar at court docket in Mayville in New York State, close to the place the assault occurred, for tried homicide.
He was convicted beneath state legal guidelines in February, and he faces separate terrorism fees beneath federal legal guidelines.
Matar, 27, additionally obtained a sentence of seven years that may run concurrently with the principle sentence.
The district prosecutor for Chautauqua County, Jason Schmidt, stated after the sentencing, “I am happy with the sentence that was imposed by the choose.”
Matar’s lawyer Nathaniel Barone stated that he deliberate to file an enchantment.
Matar rushed to the stage and attacked Rushdie on the Chautauqua Establishment in August 2022 when the writer, who was beneath a fatwa from Iran’s Ayatollah, was about to talk.
Rushdie was stabbed a number of instances, together with in his proper eye, which he misplaced and now wears a watch patch.
Henry Reese, who runs a programme to offer persecuted writers asylum, was additionally injured in the course of the assault.
Rushdie detailed the assault and its aftermath in a memoir printed in 2024, “Knife”.
The origins of the assault return to 1989, when Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued the fatwa calling for Rushdie’s demise, saying that his novel printed the earlier yr, “The Satanic Verses,” was blasphemous.
This compelled Rushdie to cover beneath the safety of British authorities for a number of years, earlier than he moved to New York and started to appear in public.
Earlier than the sentencing, Matar informed the choose Rushdie “desires to be a bully, he desires to bully different individuals. I do not agree with that”.
Rushdie was disrespectful to different individuals, Matar stated in a rambling assertion during which he spoke incongruously about freedom of speech and faith.
“There’s an irony to all of this,” Schmidt stated.
“His worth system is that he can impose his personal sense of justice and sentencing upon any person who violates, , his worth system.”
Barone stated Matar was attempting to let the court docket know that “he felt very strongly about his Muslim faith”.
He famous that whereas some might have agreed with Matar, different Shia Muslims stated, “What occurred is unsuitable.”
When federal fees have been filed towards Matar in July, Merrick Garland, who was then the Legal professional Common, stated he “dedicated an act of terrorism within the identify of Hezbollah, a delegated terrorist organisation aligned with the Iranian regime”.
Barone stated {that a} listening to within the case was anticipated in July, and he anticipated the trial to begin early subsequent yr.
Within the US authorized system, there are separate — and typically overlapping — federal and state legal guidelines with separate state, native and federal court docket techniques, and other people might be tried on totally different fees in these courts.