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A man from the United States, already serving a 25-year prison sentence for the attempted murder of Sir Salman Rushdie, has been found guilty on additional charges. These charges include providing material support to a designated terrorist organization.
Hadi Matar was convicted in a federal court in New York for offering assistance to Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group recognized as a terrorist organization by the US, UK, and several other nations. Prosecutors maintained that Matar’s actions were motivated by a fatwa issued in 1989 by Iran’s religious leader, calling for the death of Sir Salman Rushdie.
During the trial, the acclaimed author testified about the attack, recounting how he was stabbed 15 times in various parts of his body including his cheek, chest, eye, neck, and thigh. Rushdie credited a firefighter with saving his life through medical intervention. He described the scene vividly, stating, “I was on the stage, lying down, with an enormous pool of blood all around me,” and showing the wound near his eye caused by the attacker’s knife, which he said came “within millimetres from my brain.”
Prosecutors in Buffalo, New York, argued that Matar was inspired by a 2006 speech from the then-leader of Hezbollah urging the enforcement of the fatwa against Rushdie, and that the attack had been planned over two years. “The defendant decided no one was going to do it, so he had to do it,” stated Assistant US Attorney Timothy Lynch during closing remarks. The jury ultimately convicted Matar not only of transnational terrorism but also of providing material support to Hezbollah. Defense attorneys contested the terrorism claim, questioning whether the attack was driven by ideology or a personal grievance related to Rushdie’s controversial 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses. In response to these questions, Rushdie remarked, “I don’t believe the book is on trial. Somebody else is on trial.”
Matar’s earlier conviction for attempted murder was handed down by a state court in 2025. With this federal conviction, he now faces the possibility of a life sentence in prison
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
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