Prosecutor charges Salman Rushdie's assailant with terrorism "in the name of Hezbollah"

The man responsible for the stab wounds that nearly cost writer Salman Rushdie his life in August 2022 was indicted Wednesday on three counts of terrorism, according to the U.S. justice system.

The prosecution accuses Hadi Matar, a 26-year-old Lebanese-American, of attempting to provide material support to the Iran-linked Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement, which is listed as a terrorist group.

According to the indictment filed in a district court in the upstate city of Buffalo near the Canadian border, Matar also engaged in a terrorist act transcending borders and provided material support to terrorists.

These charges are in addition to attempted second-degree murder and assault, which were also pending against him following the attack on Rushdie before thousands of people during a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York on Aug. 12, 2022.

The prosecution alleges that the defendant was motivated to assasinate Rushdie by a 2006 speech delivered by Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's secretary general. In that speech, Nasrallah endorsed the fatwa (religious edict calling for his death) issued in 1989 by the then Iranian regime of Ayatollah Khomeini against Rushdie, following the publication of his work The Satanic Verses.

In attempting to assassinate Salman Rushdie, "Hadi Matar committed an act of terrorism in the name of Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization aligned with the Iranian regime," Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.

If found guilty, the defendant could be sentenced to life imprisonment.

"Time and effort"

A resident of neighboring New Jersey, the defendant traveled to the Western District of New York with the intent of killing another person, according to Trini E. Ross, a federal prosecutor in the trial court.

"This defendant put time and effort into traveling to the Western District of New York with the intent of taking the life of another," said Ross.

Rushdie, born in India 77 years ago, survived the dozen stab wounds inflicted on him by Matar with a knife after struggling for several weeks between life and death, although he lost an eye.

"Only because of the brave efforts of those who were present that day, the defendant was prevented from completing his murderous intention," the prosecution said.

One threat after another

The writer told in a book titled Knife, published last April, about how he overcame the attack and has an imaginary conversation with his executioner, whose name he does not mention, about his beliefs and motivations.

In the book, Rushdie recalls that the "idiot who imagined things about me," as he refers to the perpetrator of the stabbings, had only read a couple of pages of the book that prompted the fatwa.

In more than three decades of the religious edict, Rushdie has been the victim of more than half a dozen aggravated attempts to end his life.

Less fortunate was the Japanese translator of his work, murdered in 1991, as well as about a score of people in violent demonstrations in India and Pakistan.

After living under escort for several years and in hiding, Rushdie settled in New York in 2000 and has since then led an intense social life.