Salman Rushdie stabbing case shifts to US terror trial over motive

Hadi Matar will face a federal terrorism trial in Buffalo over the 2022 stabbing of Salman Rushdie. The case is expected to probe the alleged ideological motive behind an attack that revived the long shadow of the fatwa.

In Short

• Rushdie is expected among the earliest witnesses in Buffalo federal court
• Matar is already serving twenty-five years after his New York conviction
• Prosecutors allege he studied the fatwa and attack plans on devices

The man convicted of trying to kill author Salman Rushdie is set to go on trial again in the US, this time in a federal terrorism case that is expected to examine what allegedly motivated the 2022 stabbing attack. Opening statements in Hadi Matar's case are due on Wednesday at a federal court in Buffalo, New York.

Rushdie, 79, is expected to be among the first witnesses in the trial. Matar, 28, is already serving a 25-year prison sentence in New York after being convicted in the state case of attempted murder and assault. While that case focused mainly on the knife attack, the federal trial is expected to go further into questions of motive.

The federal courthouse in Buffalo is about 113 km from the arts and intellectual retreat where Rushdie was attacked on stage in 2022 as he was about to speak about writer safety. The Booker Prize-winning author, who was nearly killed and lost sight in one eye, has previously described the attack and his recovery in court testimony, a memoir and several interviews.

Speaking to The Associated Press in 2024, Rushdie said: "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. There's a shadow."

Rushdie was born in India and brought up in Britain, where he was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth II. He is now a US citizen. He won the Booker Prize in 1981 for "Midnight's Children", a magical realist novel about a personal and national journey beginning at the moment of India's Independence.

Matar has pleaded not guilty to federal charges including engaging in an act of transnational terrorism. If convicted, he could face a life sentence. Prosecutors have argued that he acted out of loyalty to Iran's theocratic government and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group after the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called for Rushdie's death over his 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses".

According to a 2025 court filing, Matar's electronic devices contained information on the fatwa, an Islamic religious ruling that called for Rushdie's death. Prosecutors said he also kept a journal and sticky notes recording his research on Rushdie and possible ways and places to kill him. Federal agents also found photographs in his New Jersey bedroom of Khomeini and his now-deceased successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the filing said.

Assistant US Attorneys Timothy Lynch and Charles Kruly wrote in the filing: "When he attempted to carry out the fatwa, he believed he was doing so on behalf of" Hezbollah, which the US government designates as a terrorist organisation.

Asked about the case on Tuesday, Matar's lawyer Nathaniel Barone said he planned to make an opening statement. In the years before the trial, Matar's lawyers unsuccessfully tried to block some evidence from his social media accounts and other digital activity, arguing that the government's electronic searches were too broad.

Matar did not testify in the state trial, and it is not clear whether he will testify in federal court. At his sentencing in the state case, he said he believed in free speech, but described Rushdie as "a hypocrite" who "wants to bully other people". He also spoke out in support of Palestinians while entering and leaving the courtroom.

Born in the US to parents who had immigrated from Lebanon, Matar is a citizen of both countries. His mother has said he became moody and withdrawn after a 2018 trip to Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based.

Rushdie became best known, and most controversial, for "The Satanic Verses", especially a passage containing a dream sequence about the Prophet Muhammad. Some Muslims viewed it as blasphemous, and protests, often violent, broke out against Rushdie, who was born into a Muslim family. Khomeini's 1989 fatwa forced Rushdie into hiding for years. Although Iran has not focused on the decree in recent years, it was never withdrawn. Iran denied involvement in the 2022 stabbing, though its Foreign Ministry's spokesperson at the time suggested Rushdie had brought trouble on himself by insulting Islam.

After publishing "Knife", his memoir about the stabbing, Rushdie returned to fiction last year with "The Eleventh Hour", a collection of short stories and novellas. He was also given a lifetime achievement award by the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in November. The federal trial now brings the focus back to the 2022 attack, with prosecutors seeking to show not just what happened on stage, but why they say it happened.

With PTI Inputs

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