Salman Rushdie attacker faces US terrorism trial

Hadi Matar, already serving 25 years for attempted murder, denies federal charges that could bring a life sentence

The man who stabbed Salman Rushdie in the eye on stage in 2022 is standing trial for a second time – this time facing terrorism charges after being found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison last year.

Hadi Matar’s federal trial begins in Buffalo, New York on Wednesday, about 70 miles from the venue where Rushdie was due to speak about writers in political exile in August 2022, when he was stabbed more than a dozen times.

Matar, 28, was convicted last May of attempted murder and assault at the state level. He denies charges that include providing material support to terrorists and committing an act of transnational terrorism, and faces a possible life sentence if convicted on all counts.

Rushdie, 79, survived the attack but lost the use of one eye and suffered lasting nerve damage. The Booker prize-winning author is expected to testify again, having already given evidence at Matar’s state trial. The trial is expected to last approximately two weeks.

Central to the case is whether Matar was acting on the former ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Rushdie, calling for his death over his novel The Satanic Verses , which some Muslims regarded as blasphemous. Prosecutors have also argued that Matar was acting in service of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon.

Matar, a US-Lebanese dual citizen born in California, is reported by relatives to have grown withdrawn after visiting his father in Lebanon in 2018.

Investigators say Matar’s electronic devices and a personal journal showed detailed research into how an attack might be carried out. They also say it included a note weighing the case for acting swiftly given Rushdie’s age – that he could die “any day now”, “So NOW or NEVER!!!”. Photographs of Khomeini and his successor, Ali Khamenei, were reportedly found in Matar’s New Jersey bedroom.

Prosecutors also allege Matar produced and circulated propaganda videos in the months before the attack, incorporating a 2006 speech by the then leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, condemning cartoon depictions of the prophet. Court filings further claim Matar corresponded with an Iran-based contact in the months before the stabbing who said he knew “where to find Rushdie”. Matar also asked him whether the fatwa remained active.

Rushdie was born in India and moved to Britain aged 14. He won the Booker prize in 1981 for Midnight’s Children, before The Satanic Verses made him the target of threats. Iran has denied involvement in the 2022 attack, though the fatwa itself was never formally withdrawn. In 2024, Rushdie published Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, a memoir about the attack.