July 30, 2026

Hadi Matar, the man who nearly killed Salman Rushdie onstage in a brutal 2022 stabbing, was convicted Wednesday on federal terrorism charges — a stunning escalation that could send him to prison for life. A jury found Matar guilty on all counts, including transnational terrorism and providing support to Iran-backed Hezbollah, on top of the 25-year sentence he already is serving for attempted murder. Rushdie, badly wounded and left blind in one eye after the attack, became the face of a chilling case prosecutors say was driven by a decades-old death edict and years of planning.

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