The man accused of stabbing writer Salman Rushdie, blinding him in one eye, now faces three federal terrorism-related charges, according to a grand jury indictment unsealed Wednesday.
Hadi Matar is charged with committing an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries, attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and providing material support to terrorists. He has been held without bail since the attack in upstate New York on August 12, 2022.
Rushdie was preparing to give a lecture when Matar, 26, rushed onto the stage at the Chautauqua Institution near Lake Erie and stabbed the famed author more than a dozen times, authorities said.
AP Photo/Michael Probst
Author Salman Rushdie waits for the start of a news conference at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, Oct. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Rushdie underwent a series of surgeries and was placed on life support during his difficult road to recovery. He has since published a memoir detailing the incident titled “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.”
Rushdie’s attacker, meanwhile, was quickly arrested by New York State Police officers working the event.
Matar, a New Jersey resident who holds dual Lebanese citizenship, was initially charged with attempted second-degree murder and second-degree assault in connection with the stabbing. Earlier this month, he rejected a plea deal from state prosecutors, who offered to recommend a shorter prison sentence in exchange for his guilty plea.
He also would have had to plead guilty to a federal terrorism-related charge, which had not yet been filed at the time.
Instead, Matar has pleaded not guilty to charges related to the attack. His attorney, Nathaniel Barone, told CNN that his client “has maintained his innocence, not only on the state charges against him, but will continue to maintain his innocence on the federal charges as well.”
“Furthermore, Mr. Matar will exercise all of his fundamental and constitutional rights to fully defend this case,” Barone said.
Salman Rushdie
Joshua Goodman/AP Author Salman Rushdie is treated after being assaulted during a lecture, Friday, Aug. 12, 2022, at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, N.Y., about 75 miles south of Buffalo. (Joshua Goodman/AP)
Rushdie, who has been the subject of death threats from Iranian Muslim clerics for decades, has attracted widespread acclaim and scrutiny for his literary work, particularly his fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses.”
Former Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who called the book an insult to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, issued a religious decree, or fatwa, calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989.
With News Wire Services
