Trial of Salman Rushdie’s Attacker Begins in the United States

The trial of Hadi Matar, the 26-year-old U.S. citizen of Lebanese descent accused of attempting to murder British-American author Salman Rushdie by stabbing him in August 2022, begins on Tuesday in New York.
The trial is set to begin with jury selection in Chautauqua County Court. The rural town in upstate New York, located along the Great Lakes near the Canadian border, was shaken in the summer of 2022 by the attack, which resulted in Rushdie, born in India, losing vision in one of his eyes.
On August 12, 2022, while attending a literary event on the shores of the Great Lakes in western New York, Rushdie, the author of the 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses,” which led Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa calling for his death in February 1989, was stabbed about 10 times in the neck, face, and abdomen by Matar, before the attacker was subdued.
Matar, who has been in custody for nearly two years, faces three federal charges, including “supporting a foreign terrorist organization,” according to a legal document issued on July 17 by the U.S. District Court for Western New York.
The document reveals that the U.S. Department of Justice has charged Matar with “terrorism on behalf of Hezbollah,” the Lebanese militant group.
Matar has pleaded not guilty to charges of “attempted murder” and “assault” in local courts, and he faces the possibility of a 25-year prison sentence. Iran has denied any involvement in the attack.