Salman Rushdie assailant found guilty of attempted murder

A man charged with stabbing Salman Rushdie was found guilty of attempted murder by a New York court on Friday, in the latest twist to a decades-long ordeal for the famous novelist menaced by an Iranian death warrant.

The trial began this month of Hadi Matar in the 2022 attack on Rushdie, the irreverent author whose death was called for by Islamic Republic founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in an infamous fatwa, or Islamic decree.

Matar, a 27-year-old American of Lebanese Shi'ite extraction, had pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and assault.

Rushdie was among the first to testify, calmly describing the assault and removing spectacles blacked out in one lens to reveal his wounded eye.

Jurors in the Mayville, New York courtroom heard how the knife attack at a New York lecture unfolded in a matter of seconds, leaving Rushdie half blind and fighting for his life in hospital.

Moments before 77-year-old Rushdie was stabbed on stage, a poet was introducing the book event on the topic of keeping writers safe from harm.

The defendant was accused of running on stage and stabbing Rushdie up to 10 times. The attack also damaged Rushdie’s liver and paralyzed one hand.

Matar's lawyers had argued prosecutors had not proved his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

In July 2024, two years after the incident, an unsealed indictment charged the defendant with providing material support to Iran-backed Hezbollah sometime between September 2022 and August 2022.

The indictment did not specify how Matar is linked to the group and his trial is due to be held separately in Buffalo, New York.

Rushdie is an atheist born in India to a Muslim Kashmiri family. He was forced to spend about 10 years in hiding throughout the United Kingdom and United States for much of the 1990s after Khomeini's fatwa.

Khomeini had called in 1988 on “the proud Muslim people of the world” to kill the author of “The Satanic Verses,” which centered on the life of the Prophet Mohammad.