Man convicted of terrorism in Salman Rushdie stabbing
A man has been convicted of terrorism charges in the 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie, who faced death threats for decades over his novel The Satanic Verses.
On Wednesday, a jury found Hadi Matar guilty of all charges against him, including participating in an act of international terrorism.
A message seeking comment was sent to Matar’s lawyers.
Matar, 28, is serving a 25-year New York state prison sentence for attempted murder in an August 2022 attack on an amphitheater stage. A federal conviction carries a potential life sentence.
Rushdie, who was about to speak about the writers’ safety, was stabbed 15 times in front of a stunned audience. He was seriously injured and lost his right eye.
Prosecutors alleged that Matar stemmed from a call by the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 for Rushdie to be killed because of The Satanic Verses. Defense attorney Nathaniel Barone countered that the government had no evidence of what was in Matar’s mind.
Matar himself refused to testify. Rushdie told jurors: “I can’t say what his ambitions or motives were, but the wounds were scattered throughout my body.”
Born in the United States, Matar also holds citizenship in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is headquartered. Prosecutors said photos found in Matar’s New Jersey bedroom and on his computer showed his support for Hezbollah, which the United States designates as a terrorist organization.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Lynch said in his opening statement on July 22 that Matar aimed to fulfill the fatwa against Rushdie and “wanted everyone to know he was doing this for Hezbollah.”
In the messages, it was seen that Matar first talked about wanting to “expose” Rushdie and then talked about taking his life. “We need to kill him as soon as possible,” he wrote in a private note to himself, according to Lynch. The prosecutor said Matar framed the planned murder as part of what he viewed as jihad, or holy war.
By the spring of 2022, electronic chats began, Matar wrote, noticing where Rushdie was living and keeping tabs on his public appearances, eventually drawing attention to his scheduled speech in August 2022 at the Chautauqua Institute, a Western New York arts and intellectual center.
As Rushdie was being introduced, the attacker entered the stage from behind and stabbed him 15 times as the audience gasped. The audience and another speaker, Henry Reese, scrambled to help Rushdie. Law enforcement officers assigned to the event arrested the attacker, who was soon identified as Matar, after civilians restrained him.
Rushdie published a memoir about the attack in 2024 and then returned to fiction with 2025’s The Eleventh Hour.
Queen Elizabeth II The author, who was knighted by Elizabeth II, received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize lifetime achievement award in November.
