Man Who Attacked Author Salman Rushdie Charged with Supporting Hezbollah

Hadi Matar, charged with stabbing author Salman Rushdie, listens during an arraignment in the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, N.Y., Aug. 18, 2022. (AP)
Hadi Matar, charged with stabbing author Salman Rushdie, listens during an arraignment in the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, N.Y., Aug. 18, 2022. (AP)
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Man Who Attacked Author Salman Rushdie Charged with Supporting Hezbollah

Hadi Matar, charged with stabbing author Salman Rushdie, listens during an arraignment in the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, N.Y., Aug. 18, 2022. (AP)
Hadi Matar, charged with stabbing author Salman Rushdie, listens during an arraignment in the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, N.Y., Aug. 18, 2022. (AP)

A man who severely injured author Salman Rushdie in a frenzied knife attack in western New York faces a new charge that he supported a terrorist group.

An indictment unsealed in US District Court in Buffalo on Wednesday charges Hadi Matar with providing material support to Hezbollah, the armed group based in Lebanon and backed by Iran. The indictment didn't detail what evidence linked Matar to the group.

The federal charge comes after Matar earlier this month rejected an offer by state prosecutors to recommend a shorter prison sentence if he agreed to plead guilty in Chautauqua County Court, where he is charged with attempted murder and assault. The agreement also would have required him to plead guilty to a federal terrorism-related charge, which hadn't been filed yet at the time.

Instead, both cases will now proceed to trial separately. Jury selection in the state case is set for Oct. 15.

Matar's lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, didn't immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

Matar, 26, has been held without bail since the 2022 attack, during which he stabbed Rushdie more than a dozen times as the acclaimed writer was onstage about to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution. Knife wounds blinded Rushdie in one eye. The event moderator, Henry Reese, was also wounded.

Rushdie detailed the attack and his long and painful recovery in a memoir published in April.

The author spent years in hiding after Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa, or edict, in 1989 calling for Rushdie's death over his novel “The Satanic Verses.” Khomeini considered the book blasphemous. Rushdie reemerged into the public the late 1990s.

Matar was born in the US but holds dual citizenship in Lebanon, where his parents were born. He lived in New Jersey prior to the attack. His mother has said that her son became withdrawn and moody after he visited his father in Lebanon in 2018.

The attack raised questions about whether Rushdie had gotten proper security protection, given that he is still the subject of death threats. A state police trooper and county sheriff's deputy had been assigned to the lecture.

In 1991, a Japanese translator of “The Satanic Verses” was stabbed to death. An Italian translator survived a knife attack the same year. In 1993, the book’s Norwegian publisher was shot three times but survived.

The investigation into Rushdie's stabbing focused partly on whether Matar had been acting alone or in concert with militant or religious groups.



French Politicians Condemn Mosque Stabbing Attack

A protestor holds a sign reading "Justice for Aboubakar, Islamophobia kills" during a gathering in tribute to Aboubakar, the worshipper killed in a mosque at La Grand-Combe, and against Islamophobia, at the Place de la Republique in Paris on April 27, 2025. (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)
A protestor holds a sign reading "Justice for Aboubakar, Islamophobia kills" during a gathering in tribute to Aboubakar, the worshipper killed in a mosque at La Grand-Combe, and against Islamophobia, at the Place de la Republique in Paris on April 27, 2025. (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)
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French Politicians Condemn Mosque Stabbing Attack

A protestor holds a sign reading "Justice for Aboubakar, Islamophobia kills" during a gathering in tribute to Aboubakar, the worshipper killed in a mosque at La Grand-Combe, and against Islamophobia, at the Place de la Republique in Paris on April 27, 2025. (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)
A protestor holds a sign reading "Justice for Aboubakar, Islamophobia kills" during a gathering in tribute to Aboubakar, the worshipper killed in a mosque at La Grand-Combe, and against Islamophobia, at the Place de la Republique in Paris on April 27, 2025. (Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP)

French politicians on Sunday condemned an attack in which a man was stabbed to death while praying at a mosque in southern France, an incident that was captured on video and disseminated on Snapchat.
President Emmanuel Macron offered his support to the man's family and to the French Muslim community, writing in a post on X: "Racism and religiously motivated hatred will never belong in France."
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on Sunday visited the town of Ales where Friday's attack took place and met with religious leaders, Reuters reported.
He said the suspect, who was still at large, had made anti-Muslim comments and had said he wanted to kill others. "So there is a fascination with violence," Retailleau told French broadcaster BFM TV.
The town's prosecutor told reporters on Sunday the suspect had been identified. The suspect's brother had been questioned by investigators on Saturday.
A march to commemorate the victim took place in the nearby town of La Grand-Combe, on Sunday afternoon and a demonstration against Islamophobia was expected in Paris in the evening.
France, a country that prides itself on its homegrown secularism known as "laicite," has the largest Muslim population in Europe, numbering more than 6 million and making up around 10% of the country's population.