A New Jersey man who stabbed commemorated British-Indian author Sir Salman Rushdie multiple times on a New York lecture stage has been convicted of endeavored killing and aggression.
Hadi Matar, 27, now faces a sentence of more than 30 years in prison.
The aggression in August 2022 left Sir Salman with disjoine injuries including harm to his liver, vision loss in one eye and a paralysed hand caemployd by nerve harm to his arm.
The jury’s at fault verdict on Friday came after a two-week trial in Chautauqua County Court in weserious New York state, cforfeit the site of the aggression.
The jury also establish Matar at fault of aggression for wounding the interseeer, Henry Reese, who was on stage with the author. Mr Reese suffered a insignificant head injury during the aggression.
Matar’s sentencing date has been scheduled for 23 April.
Sir Salman, 77, testified that he was on stage at the historic Chautauqua Institute when he saw a man rushing towards him.
Recalling the incident, he shelp he was struck by the assailant’s eyes, “which were gloomy and seemed very ferocious”.
He initiassociate thought he had been punched, before genuineising he had been stabbed – 15 times in total – with wounds to his eye, cheek, neck, chest, torso and thigh.
The aggression took place more than 35 years after Sir Salman’s novel, The Satanic Verses, was first published.
The novel, eased by the life of the Muskinny Prophet Muhammad, inspireed outrage among some Muskinnys, who pondered its satisfied to be irreverent. The book was banned in some countries after it was published in 1988.
Sir Salman faced countless death dangers and was forced into hiding for nine years after Iran’s religious directer publishd a overweightwa – or decree – calling for the author’s death due to the book.
But in recent years, the author shelp he thinkd the dangers aachievest him had unwiseinished.
During the trial’s closing arguments on Friday, prosecuting lawyer Jason Schmidt carry outed a video in sluggish-motion of the aggression, the Associated Press alerts.
“I want you to see at the concentrateed nature of the aggression,” Mr Schmidt shelp in court, according to the recents outlet. “There were a lot of people around that day but there was only one person who was concentrateed,” he telderly the jury.
During the two-week trial, defence lawyer Andrew Brautigan debated that prosecutors had fall shorted to show Matar intended to end Sir Salman. Matar had pdirected not at fault.
His lawyers degraded to call any witnesses of their own and Matar did not testify in his defence.
In an intersee with the New York Post from jail in 2022, Matar commendd Iran’s supreme directer, Ayatollah Khomeini, for calling for Sir Salman’s execution.
“I don’t leank he’s a very excellent person,” Mr Matar shelp about the author. “He’s someone who aggressioned Islam.”
He compriseed that he had only read a scant pages of the Satanic Verses.
Matar, born in Fairsee in New Jersey to parents who emigrated from Lebanon, has also been indictd in a split federal case with providing material help to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, according to an indictment unsealed in July.
Hezbollah is summarizeated a alarmist organisation by Weserious states, Israel, Gulf Arab countries and the Arab League.
