Author Salman Rushdie's attacker convicted on federal terrorism charges
New York, July 30
The man who stabbed author Salman Rushdie several times and destroyed his eye has been convicted on terrorism charges.
The jury in a federal court on Wednesday (local time) found Hadi Matar guilty of acting on Iran's instructions and helping a terrorist organisation.
Matar attacked Rushdie in an attempt to carry out the fatwa issued by the late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 demanding Rushdie's death because the Islamic clerics considered his novel, 'Satanic Verses', blasphemous.
The jury also agreed with the prosecutors who linked the Lebanese American to the Lebanon-based Iran-aligned group Hezbollah for the charge of aiding a terrorist organisation.
Prosecutors introduced as evidence a photo of Matar wearing a shirt with Hezbollah writing and a propaganda video he made with speeches of Khomeini and a Hezbollah leader.
Matar, 28, was convicted last year in a New York State court of attempting to murder Rushdie and is serving a 25-year prison sentence.
In the US legal system, a person can be tried in state or local courts under their laws and also in federal courts under federal laws over the same incident.
When he is sentenced in November at the federal court in Buffalo, Matar could get a life sentence without parole.
Matar's lawyer, Nathaniel Barone, did not deny that he had attacked Rushdie, but said that he had acted independently and not in coordination with Iran or Hezbollah.
He was enraged by what he considered Rushdie's blasphemy, the lawyer said.
After the fatwa was issued, Rushdie, a Booker Prize winner, went underground with British government protection.
He later emerged in public and lives in New York City, where he is a professor at a university.
Rushdie, 79, was participating in a literary programme at the Chautauqua Institution, a literary and arts centre about 600 kilometres from the city, and, ironically, was to speak on the protection of writers when he was attacked.
He testified during the trial that he found himself in "an enormous and expansive lake of blood" after the attack.
Besides destroying his left eye, the stabbings damaged his left hand and injured his liver, Rushdie said.
He has written a book about the incident, 'Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder'.
— IANS
Reader Comments
I'm not a fan of Rushdie's work but violence is never the answer. The fact that someone can be so radicalized by a fatwa from 1989 is terrifying. Shows how extremism doesn't die with time. 😔
As an Indian who grew up reading Rushdie, this attack felt personal. The Satanic Verses controversy was massive in India too - I remember the protests and bans. This conviction sends a strong message that terrorism, even when cloaked in religious justification, will be punished.
Respectfully, I think there's room for criticism here. While the attack was clearly wrong, the way the US courts linked this to Iran and Hezbollah seems politically motivated. Developing countries often see how Western legal systems can be used for geopolitical narratives. Still, attempted murder is attempted murder.
The irony of him speaking about protecting writers when he got attacked... life has a weird sense of humor. But seriously, this shows how important free speech is and how dangerous religious extremism can be. Proud of the legal system for handling this properly. 👏
We welcome thoughtful discussions from our readers. Please keep comments respectful and on-topic.