Who is Hadi Matar, American-Lebanese man convicted for attacking Salman Rushdie?

Hadi Matar, an American-Lebanese man who attacked and blinded Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie three years ago, was convicted of attempted murder by a jury in western New York on Saturday.

According to an AP report, he will be sentenced on April 23, and faces up to 25 years in prison.

Matar, who stood for the verdict, looked down but had no obvious reaction when the jury delivered it. As he was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, he quietly uttered, "Free Palestine," echoing comments he has frequently made while entering and leaving the trial.

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Who is Hadi Matar?

1. Matar, 27, holds a dual United States and Lebanon citizenship. Hailing from Fairview in New Jersey, he was motivated to attack Rushdie by a 2006 speech in which the leader of the militant group Hezbollah endorsed a decades-old fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death.

2. In 2022, Matar rushed to the Chautauqua Institution's stage as Rushdie was being introduced to the audience for a talk about keeping writers safe from harm.

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3. He stabbed 77-year-old Rushdie with a knife multiple times in the head, neck, torso and left hand, blinding his right eye and damaging his liver and intestines, requiring emergency surgery and months of recovery.

4. Matar was also found guilty of attempted murder in the second degree and assault in the second degree for stabbing Henry Reese, the co-founder of Pittsburgh's City of Asylum, a non-profit group that helps exiled writers, who was conducting the talk with Rushdie that morning, the AP report added.

5. Matar told the New York Post that he had traveled from his home in New Jersey after seeing the Rushdie event advertised because he disliked the novelist, saying Rushdie had attacked Islam.