Salman Rushdie’s accused attacker facing new federal terrorism-related charges

The man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie, leaving him blind in one eye, is now facing 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’s been held without bail since the attack in upstate New York on August 12, 2022.

Rushdie was gearing up to give a lecture when 26-year-old Matar rushed the stage of Chautauqua Institution, near Lake Erie, and stabbed the renowned author more than a dozen times, according to authorities.

Rushdie underwent a series of surgeries and was placed on a ventilator during his difficult road to recovery. He has since released a memoir detailing the incident called “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.”

Rushdie’s attacker, meanwhile, was quickly detained by New York State troopers working at the event.

Matar, a New Jersey resident who holds dual citizenship in Lebanon, was initially charged with second-degree attempted 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 been required to plead guilty to a federal terrorism-related charge, which hadn’t yet been filed at the time.

Instead, Matar pleaded not guilty to charges in connection with the attack. His attorney, Nathaniel Barone, told CNN his client “has maintained his innocence, not only on the state charges, but will continue to maintain his innocence on the federal charges as well.”

“In addition, Mr. Matar will exercise any and all of his fundamental and constitutional rights in defending this matter to the fullest,” Barone said.

Rushdie, the subject of a decades-old death threat from Iranian Muslim clerics, has garnered widespread acclaim and scrutiny for his literary work, particularly his fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses.”

The late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who blasted the book as an insult to Islam and Prophet Mohammed, issued a religious decree, or fatwa, calling for Rushdie’s death in 1989.

With News Wire Services