A federal jury in Buffalo, New York, convicted Hadi Matar on July 29, 2026, of providing material support to Hezbollah and engaging in an act of transnational terrorism, tying his 2022 stabbing of novelist Salman Rushdie to a terrorist enterprise for the first time in a federal courtroom (BBC News, New York Times). Matar, 28, pleaded not guilty to the federal terrorism charges. The conviction on all counts of a three-count indictment exposes him to a potential life sentence in federal prison, a dramatic escalation from the 25-year term he is already serving on state attempted-murder charges (BBC News, FBI Buffalo).

The attack occurred on August 12, 2022, at a literary conference in Chautauqua, New York, where Rushdie was scheduled to speak. Matar rushed the stage and stabbed Rushdie 15 times, striking his cheek, chest, eye, neck, and thigh. The assault left the author partially blinded in one eye (BBC News, New York Times).

Matar, born and raised in the United States and a resident of Fairview, New Jersey, was 26 when federal terrorism charges were initially filed against him in 2024 (Justice Department, Justice Department OPA). The federal case ran parallel to a state prosecution in Chautauqua County court. In that proceeding, Matar pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault. Salman Rushdie, 77 at the time, testified at the state trial in February 2025. On February 21, 2025, Matar was found guilty of attempted murder and received the maximum sentence of 25 years (Reuters, Reuters, FBI Buffalo).

Rushdie also testified at the federal terrorism trial (PBS NewsHour). The prosecution's closing statement was delivered by Assistant US Attorney Timothy Lynch. Prosecutors argued that Matar was motivated by a 2006 speech by the then-leader of Hezbollah calling for the fatwa against Rushdie to be enforced (BBC News). That fatwa, calling for Rushdie's death, was issued by Iran's religious leader in 1989, following the publication of Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. Hezbollah is designated as a terrorist organization by both the United States and the United Kingdom (BBC News).

The dual-track prosecution strategy merits attention. The state case secured a conviction and maximum sentence for the violent act itself, while the federal case addressed the broader question of terrorist motivation and organizational linkage. The prosecution's ability to persuade a federal jury that Matar's attack was an act of transnational terrorism, not merely a violent assault, rested on connecting his actions to Hezbollah's rhetoric and the enduring fatwa. The 2006 Hezbollah speech served as the evidentiary bridge: a directive from the group's leadership to enforce a death edict that had hung over Rushdie for more than three decades. That a speech nearly two decades old could serve as the connective tissue in a terrorism prosecution underscores the long shelf life of theocratic decrees as mobilizing instruments, and the Justice Department's willingness to pursue that chain of causation in open court signals a prosecutorial appetite for framing ideologically motivated violence against individuals through counterterrorism statutes, with all the enhanced sentencing exposure that entails.