Man Convicted of Federal Terrorism Charges in Stabbing of Salman Rushdie

Hadi Matar, 28, was convicted Wednesday of federal terrorism charges including engaging in an act of transnational terrorism in the 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie, per NPR reporting. The jury deliberated for a couple of hours before reaching its verdict.

Rushdie was slashed 15 times during an August 2022 public speaking event at the Chautauqua Institution, an arts and intellectual center in western New York. He lost sight in his right eye as a result of the attack. Matar climbed on stage as Rushdie was being introduced and stabbed him as the audience gasped. Spectators and another speaker, Henry Reese, helped restrain Matar until law enforcement arrested him.

Prosecutors asserted that Matar was motivated by the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's 1989 call for Rushdie's death over his novel "The Satanic Verses," per NPR. By spring 2022, according to electronic chats presented at trial, Matar had tracked Rushdie's location, identified where he lived, and was monitoring his public appearances. Matar eventually identified Rushdie's scheduled August talk at the Chautauqua Institution.

Messages in Matar's chats from 2021 and 2022 showed him discussing the fatwa with contacts in messaging apps. According to prosecutors and trial evidence reported by NPR, Matar expressed anger that Rushdie had "attacked Islam" and, by surviving earlier threats, emboldened others to insult the faith. In those messages, Matar initially discussed wanting to "expose" Rushdie, then shifted to discussing taking his life. In a private note to himself, he wrote: "We need to kill him ASAP."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Lynch said in an opening statement on July 22 that Matar framed the planned killing as part of what he considered a jihad, or holy war. U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo stated that Matar "spent months planning and preparing to carry out what he hoped would be the execution of Salman Rushdie."

Matar was born in the United States and also holds citizenship in Lebanon, where Hezbollah, designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, is based. Matar alluded in messages to a 2006 comment by the late Hezbollah militant leader Hassan Nasrallah. Photos in Matar's New Jersey bedroom and on his computer indicated support for Hezbollah, per NPR reporting. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg said "His brutal attack on Mr. Rushdie during a peaceful speaking event is a chilling reminder of the global reach of Iranian terrorism" and that "justice has been done."

Matar declined to testify at trial. His defense lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, argued that "the government had no proof of what was in Matar's head," per NPR. Iran's government has denied involvement in the attack.

Rushdie testified at trial, stating "I can't say what his ambitions or his aim was, but the wounds were dispersed across my body." At another point, he testified: "For two decades or more, I led a public life without a hint of trouble." Rushdie won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for his 1981 novel "Midnight's Children" about his native India. He was knighted by Britain's late Queen Elizabeth II and received a Dayton Literary Peace Prize lifetime achievement award in November. He published a 2024 memoir about the attack and returned to fiction with "The Eleventh Hour" last year.

Matar is already serving a 25-year New York state prison sentence on an attempted murder conviction in the stabbing. His federal sentencing is set for November 3, when he faces a potential life term.

Ayatollah Khomeini issued his 1989 call for Rushdie's death because of "The Satanic Verses," published in 1988. At least 45 people were killed in riots over the book over the ensuing years. A Japanese translator was stabbed to death, an Italian translator was attacked, and a Norwegian publisher was attacked. Iran's government distanced itself from Khomeini's fatwa in 1998. Khomeini's successor, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, indicated in 2017 that the fatwa remained in effect. An Iranian foundation has offered a bounty exceeding $3 million for killing Rushdie, per NPR.