Convicted assailant of author Salman Rushdie found guilty of federal terrorism charges

NEW YORK - The man who stabbed and partially blinded author Salman Rushdie on stage at a New York arts institute in 2022 was found guilty on July 29 of federal terrorism charges stemming from the attack.

Hadi Matar, 28, was convicted of attempting to provide material support to Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, a United States-designated terrorist organisation, as well as engaging in transnational terrorism and providing material support to terrorists.

A US District Court jury in Buffalo, New York, returned its guilty verdict on all charges after deliberations of just two hours, capping a trial that began on July 21, according to a spokesperson for federal prosecutors.

Rushdie, 79, had faced threats on his life since the 1988 publication of his novel The Satanic Verses. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, denounced the book as blasphemous, leading to a call for Rushdie’s death, an edict known as a fatwa.

According to evidence presented at his trial, Matar spent more than a year researching the fatwa before deciding to try fulfilling the edict with an attack on Rushdie while the author was speaking at the Chautauqua Institution in Mayville, New York.

Rushdie was stabbed with a knife multiple times in the head, neck, torso and left hand, blinding his right eye and damaging internal organs, requiring emergency surgery and months of recovery.

Matar, a US citizen from Fairview, New Jersey, was found guilty of attempted murder in New York state court in 2025, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

His conviction on federal terrorism charges carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Sentencing was scheduled for Nov 3. REUTERS