The New Jersey man who stabbed and injured author Salman Rushdie is facing new charges on Wednesday of attempting to provide support to Hezbollah.
On Wednesday, according to The Associated Press, an unsealed indictment in the U.S. District Court in Buffalo charged Hadi Matar with attempting to provide material support to Hezbollah, the militant group based in Lebanon and backed by Iran. The three-count indictment also includes charges of committing terrorism transcending national boundaries and providing material support to terrorists.
However, the indictment did not disclose specific evidence linking Matar to the group, the AP reported.
Matar is scheduled to appear on the new indictment Wednesday afternoon, with his attorney, Nathaniel Barone, telling AP via phone Matar will deny the charges
"Mr. Matar plans on denying the accusations in the indictment," Barone said. "He plans on proceeding with a vigorous defense and maintains his innocence."
Newsweek has reached out to the U.S. District Court in Buffalo via email for comment.
The federal charges come after Matar stabbed Rushdie more than a dozen times onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York in August 2022. Rushdie received three stab wounds to his neck, four in the stomach, one puncture in his right eye, two in the chest, and a laceration to his right thigh.
Matar, then 24 years old from Fairview, New Jersey, has dual Lebanese citizenship and was charged with attempted murder and assault. He later pleaded not guilty to the charges of attempted murder and assault.
According to the AP, citing Matar's mother, Matar's behavior changed after a 2018 visit to his father in Lebanon. Matar, now 26, has been held without bail since the 2022 attack.
Earlier this month, Matar rejected a plea deal from state prosecutors that would have recommended a shorter prison sentence, AP reported. The deal would have required him to plead guilty to attempted murder and assault charges in Chautauqua County Court, along with a then-unfiled federal terrorism-related charge.
With the plea deal rejected, Matar now faces two separate trials as jury selection for the state case is scheduled to begin on October 15.
Meanwhile, the attack on Rushdie came amid concerns about the author's security, given the longstanding death threats against him since the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa in 1989 over his novel The Satanic Verses and issuing a $3 million bounty for Rushdie's life. The novel caused protests across much of the Muslim world.
Rushdie's The Satanic Verses is a highly divisive topic within Islam, and whose "controversy has a long and recent past," according to Ahab Bdaiwi, assistant professor in Islamic Thought and History at the University of Leiden.
Rushdie went into hiding and was given round-the-clock protection by the British government from 1989 to 2002.
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