Salman Rushdie's attacker was sentenced to 25 years in prison for trying to kill him.

Hadi Matar , the man who stabbed writer Salman Rushdie during a literary event in August 2022, was sentenced this Friday to 25 years in prison and five years of probation for the attempted murder, in which the perpetrator lost his right eye and part of the motor skills in one hand.

Judge David Foley of Chautaqua County Court in New York State imposed the maximum sentence sought by the prosecution , sentencing Matar to an additional seven years in prison, plus three years of probation, for second-degree assault against the moderator who was accompanying Rushdie at the time.

The sentences must be served concurrently because both victims were injured in the same incident, Chautauqua County prosecutors clarified. That means he will only serve 25 years.

The Indian-born writer did not return to this court today, a small town in northwest New York, to learn the sentence, but Matar did appear to make a statement before hearing the verdict.

Matar, who had pleaded not guilty and did not speak throughout the proceedings, called the writer a "hypocrite" today, local media reported from the courtroom. "Salman Rushdie wants to disrespect others (...) He wants to harass others, and I don't agree with that ," Matar said.

The attacker professes Shia Islam , but it is unknown to what extent he acted motivated by the fatwa issued in 1989 by the Iranian regime of the ayatollahs (also Shia) to reward anyone who hunted down Rushdie with 3 million dollars.

This edict came a year after he published his novel The Satanic Verses, which Tehran considered blasphemous , although in 1998 the Tehran regime revoked it.

Matar's lead attorney, Nathaniel Barone, again argued that Rushdie's "high profile" tainted a trial in which the jury could not remain impartial.

"Since then, for the past two years, this case has been a focus of international publicity every day," Barone said, according to the press.

During the trial, which was resolved after just over two weeks and with a verdict reached by the jury in just two hours, the only words that came out of Matar's mouth were to transmit to the press a couple of proclamations in favor of the Palestinian cause .

The one who did testify then was Rushdie, who intervened in the second session of the trial and recalled Matar's "ferocious eyes" as he was gradually surrounded by a "lake of blood (...) At first I thought he was hitting me, but it was stab wounds," he said with fortitude at the time.

Rushdie, who was hospitalized and underwent intensive rehabilitation , published Knife last year, in which he described how the event had transformed him and even recreated a fictional conversation with his attacker.

On that summer day of August 12, 2022, Matar not only nearly killed Rushdie, but also wounded Henry Reese, the host of that literary event that focused on freedom of expression and authors in exile.

Hadi Matar has another federal case pending , to which he has also pleaded not guilty, in which he is accused of allegedly providing material support to the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah.