A 27-year-old New Jersey man with alleged sympathies towards Iran is on trial for the attempted murder of Salman Rushdie.
Hadi Matar is accused of stabbing the acclaimed British-Indian author at least a dozen times onstage at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York state on August 12, 2022, as he prepared to deliver a lecture.
Matar, who according to eyewitnesses was dressed all in black and wore a black mask, was restrained by audience members before being arrested by a New York State trooper and sheriff’s deputy.
He was carrying a backpack and electronic device, and had a fake New Jersey driver’s license on him when arrested, law enforcement officials said.
Now Matar is before a jury for the attack and faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
Matar is a United States citizen who was born in the US to parents who emigrated from Yaroun in southern Lebanon.
Yaroun, near the Israeli border, is a stronghold of the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah, and portraits of Hezbollah and Iranian leaders are displayed throughout the village, according to the Associated Press.
An official from Yaroun said that Matar is a Shiite and also holds Lebanese citizenship, according to wire agencies.
Law enforcement sources told NBC News that Matar was born in California and had moved to Fairview, New Jersey in the last few years where he lived with his mother Silvana Fardos and 14-year-old twin sisters.
Fardos told DailyMail.com that she learned about the attack when her daughter called her to inform her about FBI agents at her door.
Federal agents had seized items from her son’s basement apartment – including a computer, books and knives, she said.
Fardos said that she had disowned her son and that he was “responsible for his actions”.
Matar’s parents divorced in 2004 and his father moved back to Lebanon.
He appeared to change after taking a month-long trip to Lebanon to stay with his father in 2018, his mother said.
