Man convicted of terrorism for 2022 Rushdie stabbing

A man who stabbed author Salman Rushdie in 2022 was convicted of federal terrorism charges on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, in a trial that centered on the attacker's motivation to fulfill a decades-old death threat. A jury in Buffalo, New York, found Hadi Matar, 28, guilty of all charges, including engaging in an act of transnational terrorism, which carries a potential life sentence.

Matar is already serving a 25-year New York state prison sentence for attempted murder in the August 2022 attack. The assault occurred as Rushdie was about to speak on writer safety at the Chautauqua Institution, a western New York arts center. Matar climbed onto the stage and stabbed Rushdie 15 times in front of a stunned audience. Rushdie suffered grave wounds, including damage to his liver and left hand, and lost sight in his right eye.

Prosecutors argued that Matar was motivated by the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's 1989 call for Rushdie's death, a fatwa issued over the author's novel "The Satanic Verses." They presented evidence showing Matar repeatedly discussed the fatwa in messaging apps in 2021 and 2022, expressing anger that Rushdie had survived and emboldened...