July 24 (UPI) — Hadi Matar, the 26-year-old man accused of blinding Salman Rushdie in a monomaniac knife attack in 2022, was indicted Thursday on terrorism charges, with prosecutors alleging he was trying to kill the author to support Iran-backed Hezbollah .
“We allege that in attempting to murder Salman Rushdie in New York in 2022, Hadi Matar committed an act of terrorism in the name of Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization aligned with the Iranian regime,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday in a statement .
“The Justice Department will prosecute those who perpetrate violence in the name of terrorist groups and undermine the basic freedoms enshrined in our Constitution.”
Rushdie, 77, has been an enemy of Iran since the publication of The Satanic Verses in September of 1988, with Tehran’s then spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini , issuing a fatwa — meaning a religious ruling or order — for the execution of the famed author and anyone else involved in the novel’s publication.