The 2022 attack on Salman Rushdie by a 26-year-old man left the author blind in one eye. The attacker, Hadi Matar from New Jersey, has now been charged with committing acts of terrorism in the name of Hezbollah (Hezbollah), which has been designated a terrorist group by the US.
A fatwa was issued against him. Salman Rushdie after the controversy over his 1988 novel ‘The Satanic Verses’. The controversy was over references to the Quran. In 1989, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie.
Hadi Matar was working on the fatwa when he attacked Rushdie with a knife in 2022. He was not even born when the novel was written or the fatwa was issued.
The attacker has now been charged with attempting to commit a terrorist act in the name of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist party and terrorist organization, funded by Iran, which is also a Shia-majority country.
Rushdie’s attacker has been held without bail since the attempted murder in 2022.
The charges come after Hadi Matar a few weeks ago rejected prosecutors’ offer to plead guilty and receive a lesser prison sentence.
Hadi Matar’s attorney, Nathaniel Barron, said he plans to plead not guilty to the new charges.
“We plan to defend him vigorously and enthusiastically in these cases,” Barron told the BBC.
Hadi Matar, who attacked author Salman Rushdie with a knife and seriously injured him in 2022, is now facing new federal charges.
These charges include attempting to provide material support to Hezbollah (Hezbollah), a designated foreign terrorist organization; engaging in terrorist acts across national borders; and providing material support to terrorists.
“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 affiliated with the Iranian regime,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said.
According to court documents and government statements, between September 2020 and August 2022, Matar tried to provide material support and resources to Hezbollah by attempting to issue a fatwa calling for the execution of Salman Rushdie, whom he believed Hezbollah (Hezbollah) supported.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said, “The defendant attempted to enforce a fatwa, backed by Hezbollah, calling for the death of Salman Rushdie — a fatwa issued in 1989 by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.”
The indictment further alleges that Matar attempted to kill Rushdie and actually attacked him. Matar’s inspiration was, in part, from a 2006 speech by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in which Nasrallah supported the fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death that was originally issued in 1989.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the case. According to the Justice Department, if convicted, Peale could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.