The man charged with stabbing Salman Rushdie, the noted author and defiant exemplar of free speech, at a conference in western New York two years ago now faces federal terrorism-related charges, according to an indictment unsealed on Wednesday.
The man, Hadi Matar, 26, provided “material support and resources” to Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia in Lebanon, between September 2020 and the day of the stabbing, according to the indictment, which was unsealed by the U.S. District Court in Buffalo.
Mr. Matar attacked Mr. Rushdie while he was onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, which hosts a summertime literary and arts conference, in August 2022. Mr. Rushdie was stabbed roughly 10 times and was blinded in one eye.
The new charges are the latest development in Mr. Matar’s case, which is being tried in both the U.S. District Court and the Chautauqua County Court, where he faces separate charges of attempted murder and assault.
His lawyer, Nathaniel L. Barone II, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Matar was living in New Jersey at the time of the attack and worked at a Marshalls clothing store. He and his family moved to the United States from Lebanon when he was a child.
In the years leading up to the attack, Mr. Matar became increasingly isolated and intently focused on Islam. He took up boxing shortly before making the trip to western New York.
Mr. Matar took a bus to Chautauqua and purchased a ticket to Mr. Rushdie’s talk. Shortly after the author sat down, Mr. Matar rushed the stage, stabbing the author even after bystanders tried to pull him away.
The indictment accuses Mr. Matar of offering “personnel, specifically himself, and services” to terrorists when he stabbed Mr. Rushdie.
Mr. Rushdie lived in hiding after the Iranian government issued a fatwa in 1989 directing Muslims to kill him following the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses,” which fictionalized aspects of the Prophet Muhammad’s life.
For the first decade under the fatwa, Mr. Rushdie lived in seclusion in London with round-the-clock security. But for the last 20 years, Mr. Rushdie had lived an almost normal life in New York City.
He recounted the stabbing in a memoir, “Knife,” which came out earlier this year.
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