Man who stabbed author Salman Rushdie charged with supporting Hezbollah

A man who severely injured author Salman Rushdie in a frenzied knife attack in western New York faces a new charge that he supported a terrorist group.

An indictment unsealed in US District Court in Buffalo on Wednesday charges Hadi Matar with providing material support to Hezbollah, a terror group based in Lebanon and backed by Iran. The indictment didn’t detail what evidence linked Matar to the group.

The federal charge comes after Matar earlier this month rejected an offer by state prosecutors to recommend a shorter prison sentence if he agreed to plead guilty in Chautauqua County Court, where he is charged with attempted murder and assault. The agreement also would have required him to plead guilty to a federal terrorism-related charge, which hadn’t been filed yet at the time.

Instead, both cases will now proceed to trial separately. Jury selection in the state case is set for Oct. 15.

Matar, 26, has been held without bail since the 2022 attack, during which he stabbed Rushdie more than a dozen times as the acclaimed writer was onstage about to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution. Knife wounds blinded Rushdie in one eye. The event moderator, Henry Reese, was also wounded.