New York:
The man accused of trying to kill author Salman Rushdie has been charged with terrorism for allegedly acting on behalf of Hezbollah, according to documents unsealed Wednesday.
Hadi Matar, a 26-year-old American of Lebanese descent who was previously charged by New York state for the 2022 stabbing attack, has now been indicted by a grand jury on three counts that include attempting to provide material to support a foreign terrorist organization, said the accusation was dated July 17, but has not been revealed until now.
That organization is the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
In August 2022, Rushdie, now 77, lost sight in his right eye after an attack by an assailant armed with a knife, who jumped on stage at an artistic gathering in New York state. Rushdie was stabbed around 10 times.
The Indian-born author, a naturalized American based in New York, has faced death threats since his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” was declared blasphemous by Iran’s supreme leader.
In 1989, that leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, or religious edict, calling on Muslims anywhere in the world to kill Rushdie.
Hezbollah endorsed the fatwa, the FBI said in a statement Wednesday.
“We allege that by attempting to assassinate Salman Rushdie in New York in 2022, Hadi Matar committed an act of terrorism on behalf of Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization aligned with the Iranian regime,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a separate statement.
“The defendant attempted to execute a Hezbollah-endorsed fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Between September 2020 and the summer of the attack, Matar sought to provide material support to Hezbollah, attempting to execute the fatwa against Rushie, the Justice Department said.
The other two elements of the indictment accuse Matar of engaging in an act of terrorism that transcends national borders and of providing material support to terrorists.
– Life after the fatwa –
The award-winning author was stabbed multiple times in the neck and abdomen at the New York literary conference before attendees and guards subdued the attacker.
Matar told the New York Post that he had only read two pages of Rushdie’s novel, but believed he had “attacked Islam.”
Rushdie lived as a recluse in London for the first decade after the fatwa, but for the last 20 years he has lived a relatively normal life in New York.
This year, Rushdie published a memoir called “Knife,” in which he recounted his near-death experience.
In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” in April, Rushdie recounted how one of the surgeons who saved his life said: “First you were very unlucky and then you were very lucky.”
“I said, ‘What’s the luck part?’ and he said, ‘Well, the luck is that the man who attacked you had no idea how to kill a man with a knife,'” Rushdie said.
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