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Associated Press

The man convicted of trying to kill Salman Rushdie spent years researching the writer’s whereabouts before stabbing him on a lecture stage, federal prosecutors said Wednesday at the opening of his federal terrorism trial.
It is a second trial for Hadi Matar, who was found guilty in a New York state attempted murder case last year. The federal terror charges focus more on Matar’s alleged motive for the attack on the renowned author and free-speech advocate in 2022.
Prosecutors started working on Wednesday to persuade jurors that Matar was trying to carry out a 1989 fatwa, or religious ruling, that called for Rushdie’s death because of what some Muslims saw as blasphemy in his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.
“Fulfil the fatwa – that’s what Hadi Matar intended to do,” Assistant US Attorney Timothy Lynch said in an opening statement at a federal courthouse in Buffalo, New York, about 110km (70 miles) from the arts and intellectual retreat where Rushdie was assaulted.
The Booker Prize-winning author is expected to testify later this week about the stabbing that nearly killed him and left him blind in one eye.


Defence lawyer Nathaniel Barone urged jurors to keep their minds open.
“You’re going to have to ask yourselves: what was Hadi Matar’s intent?” Barone said in his opening. “The government doesn’t know what Hadi intends or what his state of mind was at any time, quite frankly.”
Prosecutors contend that Matar’s writings, communications and other materials showed he acted out of loyalty to Iran’s theocratic government and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group; Iran’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the fatwa.
Matar, 28, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that include engaging in an act of transnational terrorism. Currently serving a 25-year New York State prison sentence, he faces a potential life sentence if convicted in the federal case.
The attack – which jurors saw on video on Wednesday – unfolded in front of a horrified audience at the Chautauqua Institution, where Rushdie was about to discuss writer safety.
His assailant, wearing a medical mask, strode onstage and stabbed Rushdie repeatedly, continuing even as the writer got up and fell backward. Spectators rushed to pull the attacker off Rushdie and held the assailant face-down until a state trooper arrived.
As one of the videos played, Matar, 28, placed his head down on the defence table several times before looking back up at the screen. Otherwise, he spent much of the time writing notes on a yellow pad and exchanged comments with his lawyers.

Rushdie, now 79, has recounted the assault and his lengthy recovery during Matar’s earlier trial, in a memoir and in multiple interviews.
“The thing that happens when you get really a close-up look at death – that’s as close as you can get without actually doing the dance of death and heading off to nowhere – it stays with you,” he said in 2024. “There’s a shadow.”
Born in the US to parents who immigrated from Lebanon, Matar is a citizen of both countries. His mother has said he turned moody and withdrawn after a 2018 trip to Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based.
Prosecutors say his attack on Rushdie was propelled partly by remarks that the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah made in 2006, amid an uproar in the Muslim world over caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in European newspapers.
Nasrallah opined that “the problem began the day Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses” and that the furore over the cartoon would not have happened if someone had followed through on Khomeini’s fatwa.
Matar started researching Rushdie in 2020, asking online contacts where the writer lived and eventually looking into where his office was, what sports teams he followed and where he watched games, Lynch said in his opening statement. He said Matar kept sticky notes and a notebook about his project.
“We need to kill him ASAP,” Matar wrote, according to the prosecutor. He said Matar framed the killing as part of what he considered a jihad, or holy war, and added: “Become a warrior and just get it over with.”
In Matar’s New Jersey bedroom, federal agents found photos of Khomeini, his now-deceased successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a Hezbollah figure, Lynch said.

Matar’s computer held a photo of him saluting in a Hezbollah-related T-shirt, plus a video about Khomeini’s fatwa, and Matar asked a contact in 2022 whether the edict was still valid, the prosecutor said.
On the day of the attack, Matar carried a fake driving licence in a Hezbollah figure’s name, prosecutors said.
“The defendant wanted everyone to know he was doing this for Hezbollah,” Lynch told jurors.
Matar declined to testify at his state court trial, and it is unclear whether he will take the stand in federal court. At his state court sentencing, Matar said he believed in free speech but blasted Rushdie as “a hypocrite” and a “bully”.
Rushdie was born in India, raised in Britain – where he was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth – and is now a US citizen.
He won the Booker Prize in 1981 for his novel Midnight’s Children and became most famous – and notorious – for The Satanic Verses. A dream sequence about the Prophet Muhammad sparked often-violent protests against Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim family.
Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa drove Rushdie into hiding for years. Although the edict was rescinded, Iran hasn’t focused on it in recent years. Iran’s government denied involvement in the 2022 stabbing, but its foreign ministry’s then-spokesman suggested Rushdie invited trouble by insulting Islam.
Hezbollah’s Nasrallah did not comment on the attack.
After Knife, Rushdie’s memoir about the stabbing, he returned to fiction with last year’s The Eleventh Hour, a book of short stories and novellas. He was recognised with a Dayton Literary Peace Prize lifetime achievement award in November.


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Crime

Terrorism trial opens in stabbing of author Salman Rushdie

Hadi Matar walks into Chautauqua County court in Mayville, New York, in May 2025. Photo: AP

Assistant US Attorney Timothy Lynch gestures toward defendant Hadi Matar during opening remarks in Matar’s terrorism trial in Buffalo, New York, on Wednesday. Courtroom sketch: Alexandra Newbould via AP

Salman Rushdie attends the premiere of the documentary film “Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie” during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in January. Photo: AP

Man who stabbed Salman Rushdie sentenced to 25 years in prison

Hadi Matar arrives at Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, New York, for his sentencing on Friday. Photo: AFP

Author Salman Rushdie poses for a photo at the Deutsches Theatre in Berlin, Germany, in May 2024. Photo: Reuters

US man found guilty of trying to kill Salman Rushdie

Hadi Matar (centre) shakes hands with public defender Nathaniel Barone in Chautauqua County court in Mayville, New York, on Friday. Photo: AP

Salman Rushdie faces his accused stabber in New York courtroom

Salman Rushdie testifies, gesturing how the attacker slashed his throat, in Chautauqua County court in Mayville, New York, on Tuesday. Courtroom sketch: Elizabeth Williams via AP

Hadi Matar is escorted from the courtroom at the Chautauqua County courthouse in Mayville, New York, on Tuesday. Photo: AP

Author Salman Rushdie arrives to address a press conference at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany in October 2023. Photo: AFP

Salman Rushdie releasing memoir ‘Knife’ about horrifying attack on his life that left him blind in one eye

Author Salman Rushdie will release a memoir of a horrifying attack that left him blind in one eye. Photo: AP

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie. The book, about the attempt on his life that left him blind in his right eye. Photo: Random House/AP

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This is the second trial for Hadi Matar, who was earlier found guilty of attempted murder after attacking the writer on a state in New York


This is the second trial for Hadi Matar, who was earlier found guilty of attempted murder after attacking the writer on a state in New York.


Terrorism trial opens in stabbing of author Salman Rushdie

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}This is the second trial for Hadi Matar, who was earlier found guilty of attempted murder after attacking the writer on a state in New York

This is the second trial for Hadi Matar, who was earlier found guilty of attempted murder after attacking the writer on a state in New York