US court convicts Rushdie's stabbing suspect

Bangla Press Desk: Hadi Matar, the man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie in the United States, has been found guilty of federal terrorism charges. A New York federal jury found him guilty on all charges on Wednesday. As a result, he could face a maximum sentence of life in prison when he is sentenced on November 3. Hadi Matar, 28, was previously convicted of attempted murder in the same attack. He is currently serving a 25-year sentence in that case. The trial took place in Federal District Court in Buffalo, New York. The jury unanimously found Hadi Matar guilty after about two hours of deliberation. The federal charges against him included attempting to provide support to the Iranian-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, engaging in international terrorist activities, and providing support to a terrorist organization. The trial began on Tuesday. The verdict was announced on Wednesday after just one day of hearing. The 79-year-old British-American author Salman Rushdie testified in the trial. He won the prestigious Booker Prize for his novel 'Midnight's Children', published in 1981. The prosecution told the court that he had been receiving death threats since the publication of Rushdie's novel 'The Satanic Verses' in 1988. The attack on him in 2022 was a continuation of those threats. On the other hand, the defendant did not present Hadi Matar or any other witness on his behalf in court. After the publication of 'The Satanic Verses', a debate broke out in different parts of the Muslim world. The then Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called the book blasphemous. In 1989, he issued a fatwa. In that fatwa, a multi-million dollar reward was also announced for the killing of Salman Rushdie and those involved in the publication of the book.
After that, a multi-million dollar reward was also announced for the killing of Rushdie. This incident also caused violence in different parts of the world. Rushdie's Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi was killed in 1991. Later in 1998, the Iranian government officially distanced itself from the fatwa. However, according to the US Attorney's Office, in 2006, Hezbollah's secretary-general supported the fatwa. Later in 2017, Iran's current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei also supported it. According to evidence presented at the trial, Hadi Matar had been researching the fatwa for more than a year before the attack. Then, on August 12, 2022, while giving a speech at the Chataqua Institution in Mayville, New York, he went on stage and attacked Salman Rushdie. In the attack, Rushdie was stabbed more than a dozen times in the head, neck, chest and left hand. He lost vision in his right eye and suffered serious internal damage. Another person at the event was also injured in the incident. After the attack, some members of the audience quickly went on stage and detained Hadi Matar. He was later arrested by police. Hadi Matar was born in the United States but also holds Lebanese citizenship. He lived in Fairview, New Jersey. In February 2025, a New York court convicted him of attempted murder. Three months later, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Born to a Muslim Kashmiri family in India, Salman Rushdie later took British and US citizenship. After the fatwa was issued, he spent most of the 1990s in hiding under heavy police protection. However, more than two decades ago, he returned to the public eye and began living in New York City. He wrote a memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, about his experiences, treatment and recovery from the 2022 attack. The book was published in April 2024. Source: kaler kontho

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