Salman Rushdie: 25-year prison sentence for knife attacks

On August 12, 2022, the Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie (77) narrowly got away with life. At that time, a 27-year-old man stormed a panel discussion in the US state of New York, in which Rushdie took part and stabbed the authors several times. The responsible US court has now spoken of its judgment in the case: Among other things, the assassin has to go to prison for 25 years because of attempted murder.

Already in February of this year the guilty of the man named Hadi Matar had fallen. In addition to attempted murder, the jury also found him guilty of the assault of another man who was on stage at the time of the crime. Rushdie acted as the main witness during the process and described the severity of the injuries he suffered from the attack in detail.

Since then, the writer has been blind on the right eye. He also has to deal with other physical and psychological consequences. The reason for this is the injuries suffered on the neck and arm as well as the chest and torso of the author of the novel “The Satanian Verses”.

Rushdie processed the attack with the bestseller “Knife. Thoughts after the attempted murder” with the bestseller published in 2024. In it he has a fictional conversation with the attacker. The fact that the process was going to do until 2025 had to do with the work: the procedure was delayed because the lawyers of the accusation called for the examination of Rushdie’s book. According to the reason, it could serve as evidence.

Rushdie lived under for years and under police protection. In 1989 the Iranian revolutionary leader Ruhollah Chomeini (1902-1989) issued a so-called Fatwa, in which he demanded Rushdie’s death based on his book “The Satanian Verse” and exposed a high reward to the killing of Rushdies.