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Hadi Matar, 27, of Fairview, was also found guilty of assault in Chautauqua County Court on Friday, Feb. 21, for injuring another attendee following two hours of jury deliberations, Buffalo NBC affiliate WGRZ reports.
Matar faces up to 25 years in prison when he's sentenced in April.
The attack happened at around 10:45 a.m. on Aug. 12, 2022, as Rushdie was about to begin lecturing at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, located about 70 miles south of Buffalo. Matar stormed the stage and repeatedly stabbed the 75-year-old Rushdie in his stomach, chest, and neck, New York State Police said.
Rushdie was flown to UPMC Hamot in Erie, Pennsylvania where he was placed on a ventilator. The following October, his agent, Andrew Wiley, confirmed that Rushdie had lost vision in one eye and the use of one hand.
The other speaker at the event, 73-year-old Ralph Reese, suffered a minor head injury in the attack, police said. Nobody else was injured.
Immediately following the attack, staff members of the Chautauqua Institution and guests went on stage and held Matar down until he was arrested by a State Police trooper.
Rushdie, a native of Mumbai, India, has long been the subject of death threats from around the world following the publication of his 1988 book, The Satanic Verses, which critics deemed as hate speech directed toward Muslims.
In 1989, Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, calling for Rushdie's death. Iran has offered over $3 million as a reward to anyone who kills Rushdie.
In April 2024, Rushdie published a memoir about the attack, called Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.
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