Getty ImagesA US man who is already serving 25 years in prison for attempting to kill Sir Salman Rushdie has been convicted of additional charges, including providing material support to a terrorist group.
Hadi Matar was convicted in a New York federal court on Wednesday of providing assistance to Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed faction which is designated as a terrorist group by the US, UK and many other countries.
Prosecutors argued that Matar was motivated by a fatwa, a religious edict, issued by Iran’s religious leader in 1989 for Rushdie’s death.
The award-winning author testified during the trial, describing the attack and crediting a firefighter with saving his life by providing medical care.
During the trial in the New York city of Buffalo, prosecutors argued that he was motivated by a 2006 speech by the then-leader of Hezbollah, calling for the fatwa against Sir Salman to be enforced, and that he plotted the attack for two years.
“The defendant decided no one was going to do it, so he had to do it,” Assistant US Attorney Timothy Lynch said in his closing statement, according to The Buffalo News.
“The defendant is the one who answered that call.”
They also played videos made by Matar, 28, and interviewed Sir Salman on the witness stand about being stabbed 15 times, including to his cheek, chest, eye, neck and thigh.
“I was on the stage, lying down, with an enormous pool of blood all around me,” he testified, adding: “It was an enormous and expansive lake of blood.”
He also lifted the darkened lens on his glasses to reveal the wound to his eye, which has left him partially-blinded, saying the attacker’s knife came “within millimetres from my brain”.
Defense attorneys argued that Matar’s attack was not motivated by terrorism, and questioned the author about whether he should have expected a backlash to his controversial 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.
“I don’t believe the book is on trial,” Rushdie responded. “Somebody else is on trial.”
Matar is already serving a 25-year year sentence after being convicted of attempted murder by a state court in 2025. He could now face life in prison in the federal conviction.
Rushdie’s novel, inspired by the life of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, sparked outrage among some Muslims, who considered its content to be blasphemous.
He faced countless death threats and was forced into hiding for nine years after Iran’s religious leader issued a fatwa – or decree – calling for the author’s death due to the book.
The British-Indian novelist later detailed his experience and long road to recovery in a memoir called Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.
Last year, he released his first fiction in years, titled The Eleventh Hour.
