Salman Rushdie’s assailant in 2022 found guilty of attempted murder

The 23-year-old American-Lebanese who had stabbed the writer Salman Rushdie in 2022 was “found guilty” of the two crimes for which he was prosecuted at the Mayville court, near the Canadian border, in Knowing attempt to murder and assault, said a spokesperson for New York’s State jurisdiction after two weeks of trial.

Hadi Matar, who grew up in the United States, is expected to know his sentence on Sunday morning. He has always pleaded not guilty in this case, faces for these facts respectively 25 and 7 years in prison.

Salman Rushdie testified at his trial. He saw his attacker at the last minute, “he explained on February 11, his smoked glasses on his nose. “He had to climb the steps and cross the scene running towards me,” he explained to the court, quoted by The Telegraph. He spoke of the gaze of the one who will stab him a few moments later: “I was very struck by his eyes which were dark and which seemed very ferocious to me. »»