Federal authorities charged Hadi Matar, the alleged would-be assassin of the famed author Salman Rushdie, Wednesday with having ties to Hezbollah, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
Matar, who is 26 years old, faces charges of providing material support for the Lebanese-based Islamic terrorist organization and committing terrorism that crossed national borders, the outlet reported. (RELATED: Famous Author Salman Rushdie, Nearly Killed For Views On Islam, Warns Of New Censorship From ‘Progressive Voices’)
The 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. https://t.co/M1AgegLWyK
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 24, 2024
Matar allegedly injured Rushdie at a speaking event in New York in a knife attack in 2022 that blinded the author in one eye, The AP reported. Rushdie gained Iran’s ire after writing the book “The Satanic Verses.” Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader, issued a religious edict in 1989 decrying the novel as blasphemous and calling for the author’s death, The AP reported.
LONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 20: (L to R) Sir Salman Rushdie, Mel Brooks and Alan Yentob attend the Mel Brooks BFI Fellowship Dinner at The May Fair Hotel on March 20, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by David M. Benett/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 23: Salman Rushdie promotes his new book, “Two Years Eight Months And Twenty Eight Nights: A Novel” at Barnes & Noble Union Square on September 23, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – DECEMBER 05: (L-R) Rachel Eliza Griffiths and Salman Rushdie attend The Center for Fiction 2023 Annual Awards Benefit at Cipriani 25 Broadway on December 05, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for The Center for Fiction)
BERLIN, GERMANY – MAY 16: German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (R) chats with novelist Salman Rushdie and Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, at Schloss Bellevue presidential palace on May 16, 2024 in Berlin, Germany. Rushdie is in Berlin to present his memoir “Knife. Meditations After an Attempted Murder”, in which he confronts the attack in 2022 that left him blind in one eye. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Matar has been held in a New York jail without bail since his alleged attempt on the acclaimed author’s life and rejected an offer by state prosecutors to take a plea deal that would shorten his prison sentence, the outlet reported.
“Mr. Matar plans on denying the accusations in the indictment,” Nathaniel Barone, the accused’s attorney, told the outlet. “He plans on proceeding with a vigorous defense and maintain his innocence.”
Lahore, PAKISTAN: Pakistani Muslims torch a Britain flag as they shout slogans during a protest in Lahore, 18 June 2007, to strongly condemn the title of Sir awarded to Salman Rushdie. Pakistan’s parliament unanimously condemned Britain’s award of a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie and called for the title to be withdrawn amid growing anger in the Muslim world. Rushdie, 59, was forced to go into hiding for a decade after Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 issued a death sentence over his book “The Satanic Verses,” claiming it insulted Islam. (Photo: Arif Ali/AFP via Getty Images)
Tehran, Iran: A young woman holds a fake American flag and a poster of Salman Rushdie condemning him to death as she and other women in black chadors march in the streets of Tehran chanting, “Death to Salman Rushdie and America.” Thousands of people demonstrated in Tehran after a religious decree or “Fatwa” was issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, calling Salman Rushdie a blasphemer and his book the Satanic Verses an insult to Islam and the Prophet Mohammad, and he was therefore condemned to death. (Photo by Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)
Demonstration against Salman Rushdie In Beirut (Photo by Maher Attar/Sygma via Getty Images)
Writers gather to read selected works of British author Salman Rushdie, one week after he was stabbed while on stage, during a rally to show solidarity for free expression outside the New York Public Library in New York City on August 19, 2022. – Hadi Matar has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges after being accused of stabbing British author Salman Rushdie multiple times on stage during a literary event at the Chautauqua Institution. The severely injured author is recovering well according to family and friends, after the assault left him with multiple stab wounds on August 12, 2022. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
Matar’s mother observed that her son became socially withdrawn after visiting his father in Lebanon in 2018, the outlet reported. Rushdie wrote about the experience of the attack and the long recovery from the attempt on his life in a memoir published in April, CBS News reported.
“I don’t have any other weapons, but I’d been using this particular tool for quite a long time. So, I thought this was my way of dealing with it,” Rushdie told “60 Minutes” about why he wrote the book, the outlet reported.
Hezbollah is backed by Iran. The country vowed June 29 that Israel would find itself in an “obliterating war” if it invaded Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah. Hezbollah started to lob explosive projectiles into Israel following Hamas’ invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel responded to these attacks with retaliatory strikes.
