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Assailant Who Stabbed Author Salman Rushdie Sentenced to 25 Years
Defendant Hadi Matar arrives for his trial on charges of second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault dating to an attack on Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie, at Chautauqua County Court in Mayville, New York, US, Feb. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Robert Frank
The man who stabbed and partially blinded novelist Salman Rushdie onstage at a Western New York arts institute in 2022 was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Friday for an attack that also wounded a second man, the district attorney said.
Rushdie, 77, has faced death threats since the 1988 publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, which Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, denounced as blasphemous, leading to a call for Rushdie‘s death, an edict known as a fatwa.
Hadi Matar, 27, a US citizen from Fairview, New Jersey, was found guilty of attacking the author in the Chautauqua County Court in Mayville, New York, in February. He faced a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison on the attempted murder charge.
Video that captured the assault shows Matar rushing the Chautauqua Institution’s stage as Rushdie was being introduced to the audience for a talk about keeping writers safe from harm. Some of the video was shown to the jury during the seven days of testimony.
“He’s traumatized. He has nightmares about what he experienced,” Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said after the sentencing hearing, referring to what Rushdie suffered.
“Obviously this is a major setback for an individual that was starting to emerge in his very later years of life into society after going into hiding after the fatwa.”
Also hurt in the attack was Henry Reese, co-founder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, a nonprofit that helps exiled writers. He was conducting the talk with Rushdie that morning.
Schmidt said Matar was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the second degree attempted murder charge stemming from the attack against Rushdie and seven years for a second degree assault charged for the stabbing of Reese. The sentences will run concurrently.
Rushdie, an atheist born into a Muslim Kashmiri family in India, was stabbed with a knife multiple times in the head, neck, torso, and left hand. The attack blinded his right eye and damaged his liver and intestines, requiring emergency surgery and months of recovery.
Matar did not testify at his trial. His defense lawyers told jurors that the prosecutors had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the necessary criminal intent to kill needed for a conviction of attempted murder, and argued that he should have been charged with assault.
Matar’s attorney Nathaniel Barone said his client will file an appeal.
“I know if he had the opportunity, he would not be sitting where he’s sitting today. And if he could change things, he would,” Barone said.
Matar also faces federal charges brought by prosecutors in the US attorney’s office in Western New York, accusing him of attempting to murder Rushdie as an act of terrorism. Prosecutors accuse him of providing material support to Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, which the US has designated as a terrorist organization.
Matar is due to face those charges at a separate trial in Buffalo.
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Brandeis Center Files Complaint on Behalf of Jewish Students Expelled After Parents Report Antisemitic Bullying
Kenneth L. Marcus. Photo: United States Department of Education.
On Tuesday, the legal activist nonprofit the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law submitted a complaint against Nysmith School in Sully Square, Virginia, charging that administrators retaliated against three Jewish students after their parents reported antisemitic harassment.
The filing on behalf of Brian Vazquez and Ashok Roy details how their 11-year-old daughter experienced sustained antisemitic bullying from classmates, including the epithet “baby-killer” and the taunt that she deserved to die because of the war in Gaza. Peers reportedly told the unnamed student that everyone at the school hates Jews and Israel, which is why they hated her. When her parents complained to the headmaster, they received promises of action but nothing followed.
The antisemitic harassment allegedly increased after the school installed a Palestinian flag and canceled a speech from a Holocaust survivor (out of fear that such an event would further inflame campus tensions over the Israel-Hamas conflict). When the parents objected again, the headmaster told them their daughter needed to “toughen up.” Two days later he sent the parents a letter informing them that all three of their children were expelled, an action not justified by any academic or disciplinary problems.
The complaint argues that Nysmith fostered an antisemitic environment and cites as evidence a photograph of a drawing made by students and shared by the school featuring the face of Adolf Hitler on an image meant to depict “strong historical leaders.”
Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center called Nysmith’s actions against the students “disgraceful.”
The complaint shows “the administration not only dismissed this family’s pain and humiliation, but allowed an atmosphere that fostered antisemitism,” Marcus said. “Through its actions, the administration sent a clear message: bullying is acceptable, as long as it’s against Jewish families. We must all emulate the strength of these parents and their children and stand up to antisemitism and its perpetrators, as difficult as it may be. In addition to action from legal authorities, it is high time for public moral outrage; the normalization of antisemitism must stop.”
Dillon PLLC filed the complaint jointly with the Brandeis Center. “Summarily expelling three young Jewish kids in the middle of the school year after their parents voiced concerns about antisemitism is beyond the pale,” said firm partner Justin Dillon. “And don’t get me started about that picture of Hitler.”
The Algemeiner contacted the front office at Nysmith School for a response but did not receive a response by press time.
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White House Urges UN to Fire Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights on the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The White House is pressing the United Nations to remove Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, over what officials describe as a pattern of inflammatory, legally questionable and antisemitic conduct.
In a formal diplomatic communication to UN leadership, the US accused Albanese of crossing ethical and legal boundaries by promoting fringe legal theories and issuing sweeping threats to American and international companies.
Albanese, an Italian academic appointed by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in 2022 and recently reappointed for a second term, has come under increasing scrutiny for her outspoken criticism and targeting of Israel. Recently, she sent letters to major companies, some of them US government contractors, warning that doing business with Israel could constitute “complicity in genocide,” “apartheid,” and other grave human rights abuses. The letters alleged potential criminal liability under international law.
The Trump administration lambasted these moves as a campaign of “political and economic warfare.” In a sharply worded letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, acting US Ambassador Dorothy Shea argued that Albanese’s claims were built on “false legal premises” and “inflammatory rhetoric,” warning that such conduct poses risks not just to Israel but to global business and diplomatic norms.
The controversy highlights longstanding US concerns about perceived anti-Israel bias at the UN, particularly within the Human Rights Council, where Israel has frequently been the target of critical resolutions.
US officials have also cast doubt on Albanese’s legal credentials, alleging that the special rapporteur is not an actual lawyer. The state department contends she routinely presents herself as an “international lawyer” despite reportedly never having passed a bar exam or been licensed to practice law. That detail, the US argues, should disqualify her from the diplomatic immunities typically granted to UN officials.
The letters sent to companies are part of a forthcoming UN report, spearheaded by Albanese, that accuses Israel of operating an “economy of genocide” with the support of global corporations. US diplomats dismissed the draft as “legally baseless,” saying it misrepresents both facts on the ground and international law. “Private companies are not legally bound by human rights law,” Shea wrote in her communication.
A spokesman for the UN secretary-general’s office told the Washington Free Beacon it has “no authority over the human rights rapporteurs,” who report directly to the Human Rights Council, according to the outlet. “It is up to the Human Rights Council to handle appointments and to oversee their work,” said the spokesman.
Press representatives for the UNHRC did not immediately respond to a Free Beacon request for comment.
Albanese has long drawn criticism from Israel and its allies. She has accused the Israeli government of perpetrating a system of apartheid and has publicly compared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, a comparison widely condemned across political lines. She has also been accused of rationalizing or downplaying the October 7 Hamas attacks.
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Danish Suspect Arrested for Spying on Berlin’s Jewish Community for Iranian Intelligence Amid Rising Middle East Tensions
The Iranian flag flying over a street in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 3, 2023. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A man accused of spying on Jewish institutions and individuals in Berlin on behalf of Iranian intelligence — allegedly in preparation for potential terrorist attacks — has been arrested in Denmark.
In a statement released Tuesday, German prosecutors confirmed that a Danish citizen was detained last week in Aarhus, a city in western Denmark, on suspicion of being tasked by Iranian intelligence with collecting information on “Jewish localities and specific Jewish individuals” in the German capital.
According to German authorities, the man allegedly spied on three properties last month, “presumably in preparation for further intelligence activities in Germany, possibly including terrorist attacks on Jewish targets.”
While it hasn’t been disclosed which sites and individuals were targeted, a report by German magazine Der Spiegel revealed that the suspect took photos of several houses, including the headquarters of the German-Israeli Society (DIG).
The suspect is accused of working for a foreign intelligence service, reportedly receiving orders from the Quds Force, Iran’s elite paramilitary unit responsible for directing its proxies and terrorist operations abroad.
After being extradited from Denmark, the suspect will appear before a German judge who will decide whether to keep him in custody pending formal charges.
This latest threat comes as concerns grow over Iranian sleeper cells while tensions in the Middle East escalate amid the ongoing conflict between Tehran and Jerusalem.
After Israel struck Iranian nuclear facilities last month to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon, Iran warned of retaliation, saying it may activate sleeper cells abroad and mobilize its proxies — from Hezbollah to the Houthis — to target Israeli assets in response to the attacks.
As tensions escalated between the two adversaries, Jewish security groups and institutions worldwide, including schools and synagogues, increased security measures and urged vigilance, anticipating that Iran — limited in its capacity to retaliate militarily against Israel — might target Israeli and Jewish interests abroad.
Tehran has a long history of deploying spies to orchestrate assassination plots and attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets across Europe and the United States.
For example, Swiss authorities last year arrested Swedish teenagers who, acting on Iranian instructions, attempted to attack the Israeli embassy in Stockholm.
There have also been reports of Iranian links to a shooting at a German synagogue and planned attacks on Jewish sites in Cyprus in recent years.
In the US, one notable case is the foiled 2011 plot in which authorities uncovered an Iranian plan to assassinate the then-Saudi ambassador by bombing Café Milano, a Washington, DC, restaurant popular with American officials.
Germany has long been a strong ally of Israel, even as an increasing number of European Union members adopt anti-Israel stances and push for measures against the country.
At the same time, Berlin has maintained a tense relationship with Tehran while striving to re-engage Iran diplomatically over its nuclear program.
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