Salman Rushdie attacker faces US terrorism trial | Books
The man who stabbed Salman Rushdie in the eye on stage in 2022 is on trial for the second time; This time he faces terrorism charges after being convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison last year.
Hadi Matar’s federal trial begins Wednesday in Buffalo, New York, about 70 miles from where Rushdie will speak about writers in political exile in August 2022 and where he was stabbed more than a dozen times.
Matar, 28, was convicted of attempted murder and assault at the state level last May. He denies charges including providing material support to terrorists and committing an act of transnational terrorism and faces a possible life sentence if convicted on all counts.
Rushdie, 79, survived the attack but lost one eye and suffered permanent nerve damage. The Booker Prize-winning author is expected to testify again, having already testified at Matar’s state trial. The hearing is expected to last about two weeks.
At the heart of the case is whether Matar acted on former ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Rushdie and whether he called for Rushdie to be killed for his novel The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims consider blasphemous. Prosecutors also argued that Matar was acting in the service of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia group in Lebanon.
Matar, a California-born dual US-Lebanese citizen, was reported by relatives to have become withdrawn after visiting his father in Lebanon in 2018.
Investigators say Matar’s electronic devices and personal diary show detailed research into how an attack might have been carried out. They also say there was a note assessing Rushdie’s quick action given his age; He could die “at any moment”, “So NOW or NEVER!!!”. Photos of Khomeini and his successor Ali Khamenei were reportedly found in Matar’s bedroom in New Jersey.
Prosecutors also allege that Matar, in the months before the attack, created and distributed propaganda videos that included a 2006 speech by then-Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah denouncing cartoon depictions of the prophet. Court records also allege that Matar corresponded with an Iran-based individual who said he knew “where to find Rushdie” in the months before the stabbing. Matar also asked him if the fatwa remained active.
Rushdie was born in India and moved to Britain at the age of 14. He won the Booker Prize in 1981 for Midnight’s Children, before The Satanic Verses made him the target of threats. Iran has denied involvement in the 2022 attack, but the fatwa was never officially withdrawn. In 2024, Rushdie published Knife: Meditations After Attempted Murder, a memoir about the attack.
