Terrorism trial set to open in stabbing of author Salman Rushdie
The 79-year-old was attacked in 2022 in a stabbing that nearly killed him and left him blind in one eye (Chris Pizzello/AP)
The man who was convicted of trying to kill Salman Rushdie is going on trial again, this time in a federal terrorism case that is probing deeper into what allegedly motivated the stabbing on a lecture stage in 2022.
Opening statements are set for Wednesday in Hadi Matar’s trial in the federal courthouse in Buffalo, New York.
The venue is about 70 miles (113km) from the arts and intellectual retreat where the renowned author and free-speech advocate was attacked as he was about to discuss writer safety.
The Booker Prize-winning Mr Rushdie, now 79, is expected to be among the first witnesses, again describing the stabbing that nearly killed him and left him blind in one eye.
He has recounted the moment and his lengthy recovery in evidence at Matar’s state-court attempted murder trial, in a memoir and in multiple interviews.
“The thing that happens when you get really a close-up look at death — that’s as close as you can get without actually doing the dance of death and heading off to nowhere — it stays with you,” he told The Associated Press in 2024.
“There’s a shadow.”
Matar, 28, is already serving a 25-year New York state prison sentence on a state-level attempted murder and assault conviction.
This case focused mostly on the details of the knife attack itself; the federal one delves more into questions of motive.
Matar has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that include engaging in an act of transnational terrorism.
If convicted, he faces a potential life sentence.
Prosecutors have argued that he was acting out of loyalty to Iran’s theocratic government and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group after the Islamic Republic’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for Mr Rushdie's death because of his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.
Matar’s electronics included information on the fatwa, or Islamic religious ruling, that sought Mr Rushdie’s death, and Matar kept a journal and sticky notes logging his research on Mr Rushdie and possible ways and places to kill him, prosecutors said in a 2025 court filing.
In Matar’s New Jersey bedroom, federal agents found photos of the late Ayatollah Khomeini and now-deceased successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the filing said.
“When he attempted to carry out the fatwa, he believed he was doing so on behalf of” Hezbollah, which the US government designates as a terrorist organisation, assistant US attorneys Timothy Lynch and Charles Kruly wrote in the filing.
Asked about the case on Tuesday, Matar’s attorney Nathaniel Barone said he planned to give an opening statement.
At his state court sentencing, Matar had said he believed in free speech, but he asserted that Mr Rushdie was “a hypocrite” who “wants to bully other people”.
Matar also spontaneously spoke out in support of Palestinians while heading into and out of the state courtroom.
Born in the US to parents who immigrated from Lebanon, Matar is a citizen of both countries.
Mr Rushdie was born in India, raised in Britain — where he was knighted by the late Queen — and now is a US citizen.
He won the Booker Prize in 1981 for Midnight’s Children, a magical realist novel about a personal and national journey that begins at the instant when India became independent.
But Mr Rushdie became most famous, and notorious, for The Satanic Verses, particularly a passage featuring a dream sequence about the Prophet Muhammad.
Some Muslims saw it as blasphemous, and often-violent protests erupted against Mr Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim family.
Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa drove Mr Rushdie into hiding for years.
Although Iran has not focused in recent years on the decree, it was never rescinded.
Iran’s government denied involvement in the 2022 stabbing, but its foreign ministry’s then-spokesperson suggested Mr Rushdie invited trouble by insulting Islam.
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