By Steve Gorman
July 29 (Reuters) – The man who stabbed and partially blinded author Salman Rushdie at a speaking engagement in 2022 was found guilty on Wednesday of federal terrorism charges for the attack, which prosecutors said was incited by death threats over Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses.”
Hadi Matar, 28, already serving a 25-year prison term on state charges of attempted murder for the knife assault, now faces a maximum penalty of life behind bars when he is sentenced on his federal conviction, scheduled for November 3.
A U.S. District Court jury in Buffalo, New York, deliberated for only two hours before finding Matar guilty on all counts — attempting to provide material support to Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization; engaging in terrorism transcending national boundaries; and providing material support to terrorists.
The verdict capped a trial that began last Tuesday and included prosecution testimony from Rushdie, 79, winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for his 1981 novel, “Midnight’s Children.” Neither Matar nor anyone else was called to the witness stand by the defense.
At the time of the attack, Rushdie had faced threats on his life since the 1988 publication of his fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses.”
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, denounced the book as blasphemous, and in 1989 issued a religious edict, or fatwa, calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie and anyone else involved in the book’s publication.
Khomeini’s fatwa led to a multimillion-dollar bounty and several other acts of violence, including the 1991 murder of Rushdie’s Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi.
The Iranian government distanced itself from the fatwa in 1998. But the edict was endorsed in 2006 by Hezbollah’s secretary general and reaffirmed in 2017 by Khomeini’s successor, Ali Khamenei, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
YEARS IN SECLUSION
According to evidence presented at his trial, Matar spent more than a year researching the fatwa before attempting to fulfill the edict with an attack on Rushdie while the author was on stage speaking at the Chautauqua Institution, an arts and education center, in Mayville, New York, on August 12, 2022.
Rushdie, who spent the first decade of the fatwa in hiding, was stabbed more than a dozen times in the head, neck, torso and left hand. The Indian-born author lost sight in his right eye and suffered damage to his internal organs. A second man also was wounded in the attack.
Audience members rushed onto the stage to subdue the attacker.
U.S.-born Matar, who also has Lebanese citizenship, lived in Fairview, New Jersey, and was found guilty of attempted murder in a New York state court in February 2025. He was sentenced three months later to 25 years in prison.
Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim Kashmiri family in India and later obtained British and U.S. citizenship, spent most of the 1990s in seclusion under the protection of the British police but adopted a higher profile more than two decades ago, moving to New York City.
A memoir detailing his stabbing, recovery and emotional healing process, “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder,” was published in April 2024.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by David Gregorio and Kate Mayberry)
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