Sir Salman Rushdie ‘pleased’ by maximum sentence for attacker
The 77-year-old Booker Prize-winning author gave evidence during the trial around the 2022 attack in New York.
Sir Salman Rushdie has said he is “pleased” that the man who stabbed him multiple times on stage received the maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.
The 77-year-old Booker Prize-winning author gave evidence during the 2025 trial about the 2022 attack at the Chautauqua Institution in New York, which left him blind in one eye.
US citizen Hadi Matar was found guilty of attempted murder and assault in February and sentenced this month.
He was also sentenced to seven years for wounding another man who was on stage with the writer at the time of the attack.
On Monday, Indian-born British author Sir Salman told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I was pleased that he got the maximum available, and I hope he uses it to reflect upon his deeds.”
He also spoke about working with BBC producer Alan Yentob, who died on Saturday, on a 2024 BBC Two programme that featured an artificial intelligence (AI) creation, based on his fictional conversation with Matar that he recalled in his autobiography Knife: Meditations After An Attempted Murder.
