Rushdie stabber convicted on federal terrorism charges

A New Jersey federal jury on Wednesday convicted Hadi Matar, 28, of three terrorism counts over his 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie. The writer survived the attack with serious wounds and even testified at the trial. Matar, who already received a 25-year sentence for the knife attack, faces a maximum penalty of life in prison for the new conviction, according to the Justice Department.

How was the stabbing connected to terrorism? Many Muslims took offense at the portrayal of Islam’s central figure, Muhammad, in Rushdie’s 1988 novel The Satanic Verses. The Iranian leader at the time, Ruhollah Khamenei, placed a $3 million bounty on Rushdie’s head—and the leader of the Iran-linked Hezbollah terrorist group, Hassan Nasrallah, later endorsed that bounty.

Matar researched the continuing validity of the bounty and Hezbollah’s endorsement for over a year leading up to his attack, according to the Justice Department. Matar created videos about the bounty that included clips of Nasrallah endorsing it. On the morning of the attack, he also visited a website run by Hezbollah and saved photos of people designated martyrs by the terrorist group, prosecutors said.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report on Matar’s earlier sentencing.