A man was convicted Wednesday on federal terrorism charges for the 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie, who had faced a decades-old death threat stemming from his novel “The Satanic Verses.” The jury found Hadi Matar, 28, guilty of all counts, including engaging in an act of transnational terrorism. He is already serving a 25-year sentence for attempted murder in the attack.
Rushdie, who was about to speak on writers’ safety at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, was slashed 15 times and suffered severe injuries, including the loss of sight in his right eye. Matar’s defense argued the government lacked proof of his state of mind, while prosecutors asserted that Matar was motivated by a 1989 fatwa issued by the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for Rushdie’s death.
Matar declined to testify, but Rushdie told jurors, “I can’t say what his ambitions or his aim was, but the wounds were dispersed across my body.”
“The Satanic Verses,” published in 1988, drew protests and violence around the Muslim world, with some believers viewing it as blasphemous. Over the years, at least 45 people were killed in riots over the book, and individuals associated with its publication or translation faced attacks.
Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim family, had gone into hiding for years. While Iran’s government distanced itself from Khomeini’s fatwa in 1998, the religious edict was never rescinded. The current Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, indicated in 2017 that it remained in effect, and an Iranian foundation has offered a bounty for Rushdie’s killing.
Prosecutors presented messages from Matar’s devices that they said showed him focusing on Rushdie and the fatwa in 2021 and 2022. The messages indicated Matar felt Rushdie had attacked Islam and that his survival emboldened others to insult the faith. Matar, a U.S. citizen also holding Lebanese citizenship, reportedly alluded to a 2006 comment by the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Prosecutors stated that photos in Matar’s New Jersey bedroom and on his computer indicated support for Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Lynch stated that Matar aimed to fulfill the fatwa and “wanted everyone to know he was doing this for Hezbollah.” According to Lynch, Matar’s messages showed him initially discussing exposing Rushdie, then planning to kill him, writing in a private note, “We need to kill him ASAP,” and framing the act as part of a holy war, or jihad.
By spring 2022, Matar had identified Rushdie's living location and was tracking his public appearances, eventually noting the scheduled August 2022 talk at Chautauqua. During the introduction of Rushdie, Matar ascended the stage and carried out the stabbing. Spectators and Henry Reese, another speaker, intervened to help Rushdie, and civilians restrained Matar before law enforcement, present at the event, arrested him.
Rushdie published a memoir about the attack in 2024 and returned to fiction with his novel “The Eleventh Hour” last year. He was knighted by Britain’s late Queen Elizabeth II and received a Dayton Literary Peace Prize lifetime achievement award in November.