Writer Salman Rushdie’s attacker charged with terrorism

(Buffalo) The man who critically wounded Salman Rushdie in a frenzied stabbing attack in western New York was motivated by a Hezbollah leader’s endorsement of a fatwa calling for the writer’s death, prosecutors said Wednesday in announcing new terrorism charges.

The new three-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Buffalo, offered for the first time a potential motive for the 2022 attack on the author of “The Satanic Verses.”

Hadi Matar, a U.S. citizen from New Jersey, was actually trying to carry out a fatwa, Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Kruly said. He said Matar believed that the call for Rushdie’s death, first made in 1989, was supported by the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah and endorsed in a 2006 speech by the group’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah.

“We allege that in attempting to assassinate Salman Rushdie in New York in 2022, Hadi Matar committed an act of terrorism on behalf of Hezbollah, a group designated as a terrorist organization aligned with the Iranian regime,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press release.

“The Justice Department will prosecute those who commit violence on behalf of terrorist groups and violate the fundamental freedoms enshrined in our Constitution.”

Matar, who faces separate charges of attempted murder and assault, has pleaded not guilty to new federal charges of terrorism beyond state boundaries, providing material support to terrorists and attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization.

“The investigation has been extensive, over the last two years, and has involved a number of different agencies, a number of different countries and a number of people,” Matar’s attorney, Nathaniel Barone, said after the arraignment.

He added that the federal case would be far more complex than the state charges, which largely focus on the assault on Salman Rushdie while the writer was on stage and about to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in August 2022.

“At the federal level, there’s more interest in conspiracies,” the lawyer said. Matar, he said, “plans to mount a vigorous defense and maintain his innocence.”

Matar, 26, has been held without bail since the 2022 attack, in which he stabbed Salman Rushdie more than a dozen times in front of a stunned audience of about 1,500 people.

Rushdie lost the use of one eye from the knife wounds. The event’s moderator, Henry Reese, was also injured before bystanders subdued the attacker.

“This defendant spent time and effort traveling to the Western District of New York with the intent to kill someone,” said U.S. Attorney Trini Ross. “It was only through the courageous efforts of those present that day that the defendant was prevented from carrying out his murderous intent.”

Rushdie detailed the attack and his long, painful recovery in a book published in April.

The federal charges come as Matar earlier this month rejected an offer from state prosecutors to recommend a shorter prison sentence if he agreed to plead guilty to both the state charges and the anticipated federal charges. Instead, the two cases will now be tried separately. Jury selection in the state case is set for Oct. 15.

A detention hearing in the federal case is scheduled for Aug. 7.

Salman Rushdie spent years in hiding after Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or decree, in 1989 calling for the writer’s death because of his novel “The Satanic Verses.” Khomeini considered the book blasphemous. Rushdie did not reappear publicly until the late 1990s.

Matar was born in the United States but holds dual citizenship in Lebanon, where his parents were born. He had been living in New Jersey before the attack. His mother said he had become withdrawn and sullen after visiting his father in Lebanon in 2018.

The attack raised questions about whether the writer had adequate protection, given that he continues to face death threats. A state trooper and a county sheriff’s deputy were assigned to the conference.

In 1991, a Japanese translator of “The Satanic Verses” was stabbed to death. An Italian translator survived a knife attack the same year. In 1993, the book’s Norwegian publisher was shot three times, but survived.

The investigation into the writer’s stabbing has focused partly on whether Matar acted alone or in concert with militant or religious groups.