RUSHDIE ATTACKER INDICTED ON TERRORISM CHARGES
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According to documents released on Wednesday, the man suspected of attempting to kill writer Salman Rushdie has been charged with terrorism for allegedly operating on behalf of Hezbollah.
For the first time, the US has so blatantly targeted Rushdie’s assailant, a strong movement supported by Iran in Lebanon.
The state of New York has already filed charges against 26-year-old American of Lebanese heritage, Hadi Matar, for the stabbing incident that occurred in 2022.
According to the indictment dated July 17 but not yet released, he has been charged by a grand jury on three counts, one of which is attempting to supply materials to promote a foreign terrorist group.
Rushdie, aged 77, suffered a knife-wielding attacker’s attack in August 2022 that left him blind in his right eye following his jump onto the platform of an arts event in New York State. Rushdie suffered roughly ten stab wounds.
The Indian-born author, who became a naturalized citizen and is now based in New York, has received death threats ever since Iran’s supreme leader labeled his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses” heretical.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that leader, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, in 1989 ordering Muslims worldwide to execute Rushdie.
The FBI announced in a statement on Wednesday that Hezbollah had approved of the fatwa.
“We allege that in attempting to murder Salman Rushdie in New York in 2022, Hadi Matar committed an act of terrorism in the name of Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization aligned with the Iranian regime,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a separate statement.
Between September 2020 and the summer of the attack, Matar sought to provide material support to Hezbollah by trying to carry out the fatwa against Rushdie, the Justice Department said.
The other two counts in the indictment charge Matar with engaging in an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries and providing material support to terrorists.
“The defendant attempted to carry out a fatwa endorsed by Hezbollah that called for the death of Salman Rushdie,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Hezbollah is classified as a terrorist organization by countries including the United States, those of the European Union, Britain and most members of the Arab League.
Since the war in Gaza broke out in October, Hezbollah has traded almost daily fire with Israel from southern Lebanon, prompting fears of a broader regional conflict.
Matar is awaiting trial at the state level in New York on charges including attempted murder and assault. He has pleaded not guilty, and could face a sentence of up to 25 years if convicted.
US media reports say the trial could start October 15.
Matar has told the New York Post newspaper that he had only read two pages of Rushdie’s novel but believed he had “attacked Islam.”
The award-winning author was stabbed in the neck and abdomen at the New York literary conference before attendees and guards subdued the assailant.
Rushdie had lived in seclusion in London for the first decade after the fatwa was issued, but for the past 20 years he lived a relatively normal life in New York.
This year, Rushdie published a memoir called “Knife” in which he recounted the near death experience.
In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” program in April, Rushdie told how one of the surgeons who saved his life had said: “First you were really unlucky and then you were really lucky.”
“I said, ‘What’s the lucky part?’ and he said, ‘Well, the lucky part is that the man who attacked you had no idea how to kill a man with a knife,’” Rushdie said.
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