Also hurt in the attack was Henry Reese, co-founder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, a nonprofit that helps exiled writers. He was conducting the talk with Rushdie that morning.
Schmidt said Matar was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the second degree attempted murder charge stemming from the attack against Rushdie and seven years for a second degree assault charged for the stabbing of Reese. The sentences will run concurrently.
Rushdie, an atheist born into a Muslim Kashmiri family in India, was stabbed with a knife multiple times in the head, neck, torso and left hand. The attack blinded his right eye and damaged his liver and intestines, requiring emergency surgery and months of recovery.
Matar did not testify at his trial. His defense lawyers told jurors that the prosecutors had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the necessary criminal intent to kill needed for a conviction of attempted murder, and argued that he should have been charged with assault.
Matar’s attorney Nathaniel Barone said his client will file an appeal.
“I know if he had the opportunity, he would not be sitting where he’s sitting today. And if he could change things, he would,” Barone said.
Matar also faces federal charges brought by prosecutors in the US attorney’s office in Western New York, accusing him of attempting to murder Rushdie as an act of terrorism. Prosecutors accuse him of providing material support to Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, which the US has designated as a terrorist organization.
Matar is due to face those charges at a separate trial in Buffalo.
Source: CNA
