Hadi Matar, a US citizen, was convicted in a New York federal court on Wednesday of providing material support to Hezbollah, a Lebanese group designated as a terrorist organization by the US, UK, and many other countries.

Charges and Motives

Prosecutors argued that Matar was motivated by a fatwa, a religious edict, issued by Iran’s religious leader in 1989 calling for Sir Salman’s death; the jury convicted Matar of engaging in an act of transnational terrorism and providing material support to Hezbollah.

Assistant US Attorney Timothy Lynch, according to The Buffalo News, stated in his closing argument that ‘the defendant decided no one was going to do it, so he had to do it.’

Trial Details and Testimonies

During the trial in Buffalo. New York, prosecutors played videos made by Matar, 28, and interviewed Sir Salman on the witness stand about being stabbed 15 times, including to his cheek, chest, eye, neck, and thigh. Sir Salman testified that he was ‘on the stage, lying down, with an enormous pool of blood all around me,’ describing it as ‘an enormous and expansive lake of blood.’

He also revealed the wound to his eye, which has left him partially blinded, stating the attacker’s knife had come ‘within millimetres from my brain.’

Defence attorneys argued that Matar’s attack was not motivated by terrorism and questioned the author about whether he should have expected a backlash to his controversial 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses. Sir Salman responded, ‘I don’t believe the book is on trial. Somebody else is on trial.’

Background and Aftermath

Matar is already serving a 25-year sentence after being convicted of attempted murder by a state court in 2025. He could now face life in prison in the federal conviction.

Sir Salman’s novel, inspired by the life of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, sparked outrage among some Muslims, who considered its content to be blasphemous. He faced countless death threats and was forced into hiding for nine years after Iran’s religious leader issued the fatwa.

The British-Indian novelist later detailed his experience and long road to recovery in a memoir called Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. Last year, he released his first fiction in years, titled The Eleventh Hour.