Man convicted of federal terrorism for 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie

A federal jury on Wednesday convicted Hadi Matar of all terrorism charges stemming from the August 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie. Matar, 28, is already serving a 25-year New York state prison term for attempted murder in the same incident, and the new conviction carries a potential life sentence.

Prosecutors said Matar had shared extremist propaganda videos before the attack and communicated with an Iran-based contact who claimed to know Rushdie’s whereabouts. They also alleged that Matar inquired whether the longstanding fatwa against Rushdie remained active.

Matar declined to testify; his lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, stated, "> At this time, the defense rests."

Rushdie, who was delivering a talk on writers’ safety when he was slashed 15 times, suffered severe injuries, including permanent loss of sight in his right eye. He later described the experience as a near-death moment.

The indictment linked Matar’s motive to a 2006 speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, which endorsed the decades-old Iranian fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death. In 2022, Matar admitted he had read only a few pages of the novel that triggered the fatwa.

In April 2024, Rushdie published a memoir titled Knife about the attack. At a book festival in March, he said writing the memoir reopened memories of the trauma and expressed concern about being portrayed as a symbol rather than a working writer.