Hadi Matar convicted in terrorism trial over Salman Rushdie stabbing

A man was convicted on Wednesday of federal terrorism charges in the 2022 stabbing of Salman Rushdie, the author who has faced a decades-old death threat over his novel The Satanic Verses.

A jury found Hadi Matar guilty of all the charges against him, including engaging in an act of transnational terrorism.

A message seeking comment was sent to Matar’s lawyers.

Matar, 28, is already serving a 25-year New York state prison sentence on an attempted murder conviction in the August 2022 attack on an amphitheatre stage. The federal conviction carries a potential life sentence.

Rushdie, who was about to speak on writers’ safety, was slashed 15 times in front of a stunned audience. He was gravely wounded and lost the sight in his right eye.

Prosecutors asserted that Matar was motivated by the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1989 call for Rushdie’s death because of The Satanic Verses. Defence lawyer Nathaniel Barone countered that the government had no proof of what was in Matar’s head.